One Girl Force
by NoxedSalvation
Summary: A young and vulnerable Taylor is trapped in the chaos of an Endbringer attack - then, the One Girl Force emerges. Worm/Perry Rhodan crossover.
1. Prelude

"Worm" belongs to Wildbow and "Perry Rhodan" To Pawel-Moewig. This is a noncommercial work.

One Girl Force 

1.1 

"If you look closely, you can see how the worker bees are feeding the larvae with royal jelly. The intervals of feeding are very different between those destined to become queens and..."

Taylor, who stood a few paces behind her peers due to her height, was distracted from the elderly beekeepers explanation by a commotion at the entrance of the insect showroom.

A young man wearing the unnaturally green uniform of the Franklin Park Zoo was talking agitatedly to Nancy, her group's youth camp instructor.

His eyes were wide, and he seemed out of breath, as if he had been running a long way.

The words he was spewing at Nancy had a sharp edge to them, although Taylor couldn't understand them from her position, and the young woman was covering her mouth with both hands, as if to keep in a scream, or to hide her terror.

While Taylor viewed the adult's strange interaction, her stomach started to plummet in anticipation of bad news.

If her mother's death half a year ago had taught her anything besides the depth of emotional pain people could suffer, it was that no one and nothing was ever really save in this world.

More so than in any other historical period really, because there were capes now - and things like the Endbringers.

The other kids hadn't noticed anything yet, and were still listening to the beekeeper's explanation of insect biology, but as fascinating as it had been to her just seconds ago, Taylor couldn't care less about it now.

Something terrible must've happened to cause the boisterous and unflappable Nancy to look so shocked.

The deep dread that had filled Taylor a week ago, when she had first arrived at youth camp, separated from her depressed dad and thrown into a group of kids she'd never met before, returned to her with a vengeance.

As he left Nancy, who seemed rooted to her place, the zoo employee fell into a straight out run before the showrooms door had fully closed behind him.

Taylor felt her throat go dry as she observed the athletic blonde camp instructor's struggle to hide her distress.

Nancy's usually expressive, friendly and very pretty face formed into a cold mask.

This was going to be terrible, she just knew it!

After what seemed a to be a very long time to Taylor, Nancy straightened and walked over to them, fast but controlled, sending a message with her body posture as much as her calm facade.

Taylor felt sure that she would've bought into the young woman's acting, if she hadn't seen the instructors horrified reaction a minute ago.

A short burst of affection for the twenty year old and her up to now very good care of their group shot through Taylor's brain, before it drowned in her still rising fear.

"Listen up, peeps!" Nancy called out in her melodious inflection.

Her voice was shockingly loud, and to her credit, there was barely a tremble in it.

The old beekeeper stopped his talk, surprise over the interruption clearly showing on his face, and everyone stared at Nancy, confused by the normally easygoing girl's behavior.

"I'm sorry to cut our trip short, but I've been informed that the zoo is closing for the day because of … technical problems."

Unhappy muttering broke out between the other eleven teens, but Taylor kept quite, her focus on Nancy and what she was hiding from them.

"I know it's annoying, I was hyped up to see the dolphins myself, but we have to leave," she told them, her tone firm, brooking no arguments.

The complaints subsided quickly, everyone knew by now that Nancy was nice and playful most of the time, but meant business when she talked like this.

"Ok, this is how we'll do this, you will line up in front of the door in pairs, and everyone will grab his partners hands."

Some of the boys looked aghast and grumbled about "being treated like kindergartners", but Nancy cut this short by raising her voice and sharpening her tone to a knife's edge.

"There will be no discussion, we must leave quickly and the group must stay together. You can cry and moan later, for now you've heard what I said."

She pointed to the door with an imperative gesture, and everyone started to shuffle over and fall into line, cowed by her steely resolve.

Taylor found a place at the middle of the line, and took the hand of Cleona, a delicate black girl from Concord, whom she had befriended in the last days, mostly because they were both half-orphans.

While the last people were finding a position, Taylor saw Nancy talk to the beemaster, and felt her trepidation mount even higher when she saw the old man gripping his chest over his heart, while his eyes went so wide that they looked eerily white, as if his pupils had vanished.

"Any idea what's up?" Cleona whispered from her right, her voice more suspicious than frightened.

"No, but it's serious." Taylor replied in a low voice.

"I think we should do exactly as she says, there's more to this than just," she paused, making air quotes with her left hand, "technical problems".

Nancy walked up to the group after making sure the beekeeper was alright, and took the point of the column, before turning to them.

"To make this absolutely clear," she stated, more coldly than she had ever spoken to them, "there will be no horseplay, no teasing, no stepping out of this line, until we are back at the bus. Is that understood?"

Variations of "Understood", "Yeah" and "Gotcha" answered her.

"Good. Follow me then."

The group left the insect house, walking at the quick pace enforced by Nancy.

Not a single person from the mass of tourists and excursionists who had been strolling up and down the paved ways when they had entered the showroom was still there.

The zoo looked utterly deserted, and only the low droning traffic noise from outside was proof that everyone hadn't been swallowed up by the ground.

Taylor felt cold sweat forming on her brow, and her hand gripping Cleona's fingers was getting clammy too.

The whole situation, the atmosphere around the group, reminded her more and more of an Earth Aleph horror movie she had seen a few weeks ago.

Taylor shuddered, she shouldn't have watched that _Langoliers_ crap, but Emma had teased her until she had given in.

She was sure that this whole experience felt exactly like what the people on the deserted airport in that movie must've perceived before the world eating monsters showed up.

Time passed quickly as they moved with a clipped pace, and none of the other kids were talking, pressed down as they were by the emptiness of the formerly crowded place, and the unexplained severity of their instructor.

"There's the bird exhibit, we're nearly at the exit!" Nancy exclaimed, her tone indicating that she felt more than a bit relieved by the fact.

Seconds later, an obviously agitated mass of people came into view, all of whom were waiting impatiently, and in some cases quite disorderly, to pass the gates of the zoo.

Taylor was sure that she would get to know what was happening in short order from the shouting of the crowd, but before the group of youths came close enough to sort all the shouting and hollering out, all her questions were answered by another source.

The Endbringer sirens began to wail in the distance.

1.2

Their whole group stopped from one second to the next, as if they were one large organism, a centipede with human legs.

Taylor sympathized with the total shock and dawning horror she read on the others' faces, but she herself had anticipated something like this from the moment she saw Nancy's reaction to the zoo employee's news.

That foreknowledge enabled her to stay somewhat calmer than the others, as she had to confront her worst fears, the worst nightmares of humanity, really.

Not that she didn't feel gut-wrenching terror at the thought that one of the three mass murdering abominations called "Endbringers" was heading in her general direction, was coming to Boston right at this moment, with the only intention to kill and destroy everything in its way.

After a few seconds of paralysis, everyone but Taylor started to shout at their instructor and each other, a mix of rising anger, fear and hysteria audible in their voices.

A wave of panic was building up, Taylor could feel it in her own reaction to her peers, the quickening of her heartbeat, the rush of blood in her ears.

Nancy stood a few meters in front of the group, not listening to the accusations of being a "liar", "stupid babysitter" or "insane for confiscating our phones", and the other nasty insults some of the boys were hurling in her direction.

She had turned white like a sheet and her hands covered her mouth once again, and for a moment, Taylor feared that she had lost it, that the one adult who was duty bound to get her and the others out of this, was incapacitated by her own dread.

Luckily, Nancy caught herself after a few more seconds, and began to act.

She came back towards the group, until she stood directly in front of her accusers, where her tall and athletic frame towered over everyone, topping even Jeff, the oldest and most outspoken guy in the group.

"Yes, what we are hearing is an Endbringer alarm!" the instructor called over the whining and babbling youths, her trained and familiar voice quieting most of them down.

"I didn't want to panic you while it was only an east coast wide warning, but now it's certain – Leviathan is coming here."

Some of the girls around Taylor started to cry in fear, and Jeff and his gaggle of jock followers fell silent.

Everyone understood what Leviathan was, what he had done, especially the fates of Kyushu and Newfoundland were well known.

No one and nothing had been able to stop him before he drowned millions of people and sank those two islands, not to mention all the other atrocities he had committed.

"It's fucking horrible, you can see that I'm as shaken as you," Nancy shouted, real anger entering her tone for the first time since Taylor had met her.

"My family lives here in Boston, I love this city, it's my home, and I'm terrified for it and my loved ones." the instructor said, her voice cracking just a little.

"But I'm responsible for all of you, and I know the drills, I know the nearest shelters."

She was obviously trying to cajole everyone into following her lead now, and her tone became intense.

"Please, _please listen_, we can't panic and run around like headless chicken. What we have to do _right now_ is to leave the zoo in an orderly fashion, take our bus, and drive to the shelter at the _Lemuel Shattuck Hospital_, that's only a very short drive from here..."

Taylor felt some relief at the thought of a massive concrete bunker, at least until she heard Nancy completing the sentence.

"...there, we will be as safe as anyone can be in an Endbringer attack."

Taylor shuddered, picturing the hundreds of thousands of Japanese and Canadian people who had thought themselves "protected" inside their shelters, until their whole islands had been put under the tidal waves of the oceans.

"We will wait here, where we are now, until most of those people," Nancy pointed towards the gates "are gone. Then we will walk quickly - no running! - to our bus, staying together as a tight group for the whole trip."

Everyone was hanging on her words as if they were a lifeline, even the boys who had cursed her only moments ago.

Nancy's sheer presence and authority was soothing, she was making sense from the chaos, knew where the shelters were, had the only transportation to get there.

She reminded Taylor of her dad before her mother had died, resolute in the face of trouble, and simply competent.

"Hey Taylor?"

Cleona's hushed, unsteady voice pulled her from her slightly convoluted, self-distracting thoughts on the negative changes in her father and the great qualities of their camp instructor.

She turned towards her new friend and plastered a small smile onto her lips, obviously fake, but much better than the snarl of fear and hate she felt pulsing beneath the carefully controlled surface of her mind.

"Yeah?"

"I feel like crying and shouting and running away all at once, how can you stay so calm in all this?"

The other girl was actually trembling slightly, and clutched Taylor's hand with both her own now, seeking more contact.

"Don't know what you're talking about, I may seem calm, but inside it's all screaming and terror." Taylor mumbled.

While she spoke, she took a step closer, and hugged Cleona tightly, trying to give her what comfort she could.

They stood this way for a few minutes, while dark clouds were gathering above the city and a cold wind started to blow from the Atlantic.

When Nancy finally told them that everyone should get ready to move, the two girls separated only haltingly, unwilling to give up the small measure of human warmth and solace they had shared.

Observing the area in front of the gates, Taylor found that it had emptied massively by now, and only a few dozen people remained clustered there, more hindering each other in their need to get out than helping everyone to leave quickly.

"OK, remember what I said before, keep together, don't run, follow my lead to the bus, and soon we'll all be saved." Nancy reminded them one more time.

"Let's go!"

The group walked in a tight formation behind their instructor, who had timed their approach so perfectly that they passed the gates directly behind the last clustered family, and could move on without pause, albeit slower than before.

Turning left, they marched along the street, careful not to get on the tarmac and into the way of the cars which were speeding by recklessly in both directions.

An almighty chaos was developing on the parking lot, with people of all age groups and walks of life hastening to their vehicles, while cursing Leviathan, the PRT, God and everyone else one could think of.

Filled with fear and hatred, the atmosphere felt stifling, and Taylor had to do battle with herself to keep up even her outward stoicism.

Resisting the growing panic all around her got harder and harder, she had to actively hold down her own emotions, or she would succumb to the mindset of the stampede.

Their bus came into view, a Champion Crusader that seated up to fifteen people, a vehicle class chosen so that every camp instructor could drive their groups around without a need for a commercial license, as Nancy had explained on their trip into Boston.

After they filed inside one by one, Taylor and Cleona took a bench in the front, directly behind the driver's seat.

Nancy, who had waited outside to count heads, followed Jeff into the bus, and swung herself behind the wheel in one fluid motion.

"Alright people, fasten your belts and keep calm, it's only about two miles to the shelter." she told the group with a raised voice, while she started the bus.

It took a few more minutes to navigate the car park in its current state, but Nancy managed it somehow.

Just as their vehicle rolled onto the road, with Nancy ignoring the aggressive honking of some anti-social jerk, who obviously thought he alone should get to safety, it started to rain.

Leviathan's tempest had begun.

1.3

The drive from the zoo towards the shelter at the hospital went much slower than Taylor had hoped, the traffic ahead of them was thick, and a lot of people were trying to speed along as fast as possible, endangering themselves and others.

Directly in front of the bus, a plumber's pickup, loaded with a rack holding a dozen gas bottles, made its way through the dense sheets of rain which were coming in from the shore.

The downpour was driven into nearly horizontal flight by the intensifying storm.

Taylor had taken a window seat, and she tried her best to get a picture of what was going on outside, but it was increasingly difficult to see even the trees and landscape of Franklin Park, despite the fact that they were passing right through it.

She knew that a golf course took up a lot of the area to her left, and wondered for a moment why anyone would place such a thing squarely in the middle of a heavily populated zone.

Giving up on deciphering the secrets of urban planning, she focused on the mood of the group and looked around inside the bus.

Everybody seemed subdued, there was very little chatter, but she detected a tiny smattering of optimism mixed in with the scared murmurings the others exchanged.

A few more minutes passed, mostly in tension filled silence.

Taylor had begun to look ahead, over Nancy's shoulder and through the windshield, and she thought she could make out the first signs of the hospital, bright lights greeting her with hope from the upper floor windows.

They were nearly there, they would make it.

"Shit!" Nancy screamed suddenly, and Taylor's gaze snapped down to street level.

She saw the dim lights of the pickup, driving into a right bend curve, maybe fifty feet in front of them, but a fleeting moment later she discovered why Nancy had cursed, and was already hitting the brakes for whatever they were worth, causing everyone to be thrown into their seatbelts, followed by a cacophony of terrified screams and screeches.

A very fast car with what looked like tinkertech headlights, intense enough to spear through the rain and darkness, was ripping down a small street that met the road they were on in the midst of the curve.

Time seemed to slow down, and with eyes widened by horror, Taylor watched as the insane sports car driver accelerated even further, only to smash himself into the pickup in a head on collision that no one could've possibly survived.

Somehow, Nancy's breaking allowed them to avoid piling into the terribly twisted wreckage blocking the street, which had seconds ago been two separate cars, but as they swerved to the left and bumped off the pavement, slowing down to slightly above walking speed, their luck ran out.

The explosion of the gas bottles sent a wall of pressure and searing fire in every direction, it shattered the windows of the bus, drove deadly shards into the bodies of the helpless teens inside, ignited their hair, their clothes, the whole interior, while throwing the vehicle on its side, reduced to a flaming deathtrap.

The agony was indescribable, nothing Taylor had ever felt came close to it. She was burning alive, on fire like a living torch, and there was no respite from it, no "inner movie" that was reputed to play out a persons live in their dying moments, no comfort from some mysterious light in a dark tunnel, only pain, pain, pain, desperate, uncoordinated movements, and more pain.

Then, everything changed.

_She saw titanic shapes dancing around each other, their outer shells disintegrating into a myriad of splinters, or maybe shards, and one of them was falling towards her through the blackness of space, speeding up while tumbling around its own axis, until it hit her... _

_A pair of monstrous creatures, easily twelve feet in height, and of an enormous, unnatural width, stamped down a seemingly endless, unlit corridor. _

_Their six huge red eyes gleamed in the darkness, it looked as if triangles of embers had been placed in the creature's dome-like, black skinned heads. _

_The two giants were wearing armored battle dresses in the color of blood, ornamented with multiple futuristic gadgets, but an inkling of their hulking muscles could still be gleaned beneath their armament. _

_Both of them carried massive guns, huge enough to be the onboard weapons of fighter jets or attack helicopters, intimidating in their deadly, sleek simplicity. _

_The silent, menacing march ended in front of a massive air-lock, where one of the beings started to manipulate a switch board with both hands, but without putting its weapon down... _

_That was no problem at all, because the mysterious giants had not one, but two pairs of arms. _

_The upper one was much longer, and more massive, while the lower had less muscles, and looked slightly misplaced on the body, as if it had been added as an afterthought. _

_After a long period of fruitless tinkering, the ogre at the airlock controls stepped aside, and the other one retreated back into the darkness of the corridor. _

_A minute later, the giant returned into view, barreling down the corridor like a living cannonball, moving on its legs and lower arms like an unstoppable force of nature. _

_It crashed through the reinforced steel hatch as if it was made from paper, spraying the tunnel with shrapnel. _

_The other one didn't even react when the fragments hit its face, but just followed its comrade through the air-lock, demonstrating an agility that was at odds with its bulky form. _

_Inside was another long tunnel, this time illuminated by emergency lights giving off a sickly green glow. _

_The two giants continued their silent march for a long time, until finally, the tunnel changed. _

_The walls retreated, and in their stead, the beings found huge holding cells, hundreds of feet deep and equally long, secured with titanic steel bars - and filled with skeletons. _

_Thousands, tens of thousands of skeletons. _

_The carcasses looked ominously similar to the body structure of the two giants, with four arms, dome like skulls and measurements only negligibly smaller than theirs. _

_Having stopped, the two stared at the gruesome vista before them, obviously shocked to find themselves in a place filled with their own dead. _

_For the shortest moment, they were truly distracted by the horrific sight, and therefore didn't notice the green energy fields that sprang up all around them, or the heavy automated guns that popped up from hatches in the walls and ceilings. _

_Before they could react, they were bathed in beams of debilitating energy, and thrown to the ground by kinetic pulses. _

_Agony surrounded them on all sides, caused by weapons invented to deal with creatures of their kind... there was no way out, no mercy, no respite... _

… until Taylor found herself stretched out on her back, encompassed by flames, but without feeling pain, without hurting at all.

She sat up slowly and took in her surroundings, stared at the red hot fire consuming everything around her, functionally blinding her through the sheer amount of brightness.

Taylor swiveled her head around, but couldn't see anything with a discernible form, nothing but flames and chaos.

She couldn't remember her past.

Had anything at all happened before this moment in existence? Was she dead or alive?

No!

This wasn't right!

If this was hell, she should feel horrific pain, as sinners deserved according to the major religions, but... there was just nothing.

Wait, major religions? How did she know that? Did she even know it?

What was happening to her?

She tried to stand up from the burning ground, decided to bolt away, regardless in which direction, but she just stumbled half a step, and fell back, unable to balance her body, utterly confused by the wrongness that hammered into her mind through all her senses.

She sat there, incomprehension overwhelming her, the thought process in her brain a swirling mess that threatened to just collapse on itself.

Taylor didn't know how long this state lasted, but after what seemed like an eternity of dazed existence, something alien entered her unraveling mindscape.

She couldn't fight it, and she wouldn't have even if she knew how, because this alien presence was a point on which she could focus, a sort of anchor in the messy melange her body and mind had become.

With a jolt, the presence expanded inside her, spread into her body and took it over effortlessly.

Her arms started to move without any command from her, and her form was pushed up in a graceful motion, bringing her upright and giving her solid footing.

She/The Presence bend her knees, and with a sudden eruption of power, her body was catapulted from the fire, landing elegantly on all sixes (sixes?) in front of a large truck.

The Presence/Taylor straightened once again, and her head became visible in the windshield of the vehicle, which was illuminated by the flames behind her.

Three red eyes stared back at her from the glass.


	2. Closing In

Disclaimer: Worm and Perry Rhodan still belong to their owners. I don't make a single Cent with this story. Imagine, some people produce stuff just for the fun/joy of it!

**1.4 **

To say that Taylor was stunned by the sight of her own reflection would've been the understatement of the century.

Despite her swirling confusion and uncertainty, her lacking or shattered memories, she was sure that _this_ was not herself.

She might not have been the most beautiful girl before the surreal events of the last minute, not by a long shot, but now, she had turned into a monstrosity!

Taylor stood there and stared at the new "face" that had somehow appeared in place of her own, transfixed by the view despite her inner turmoil and disgust at the view.

Nothing else registered with her for an endless minute, not the sounds of the inferno behind her, nor the wailing sirens or the noises of the storm, not even the soft rummaging The Presence was conducting in the echoing halls of her injured brain.

Her three huge red eyes roamed over her massive, black skinned and half spherical head, taking in the wide, thin lipped mouth, the flat and recessed nostrils, the massive teeth that looked like daggers growing from what went for jaws in this horrific form.

Shuddering in revulsion, she looked down at herself, and found a gigantic body that could've come straight out of a nightmare, black from head to toes, bulky like a battle tank, and equipped with four arms thick as trunks, and muscular enough to put even the most reckless anabolics using human bodybuilder to shame.

There was no trace of clothing on her, but as she examined her form further, she couldn't find any sign that this body had a gender, at least not if "brute" was still an asexual description

To be like this, an outlandish and repulsive freak, was simply unacceptable, unthinkable really, and Taylor started to fervently hope that all her perceptions were effects of a fugue.

Maybe she had been given a drug without her knowledge, or she had suffered a psychotic break?

Those theories were compatible with her wishes and rudimentary self image at least, even if they were no cause for celebration.

Better to be crazy and sit in some padded cell, than to be a living, breathing horror.

Her thoughts began to swim once more, canceling each other out like waves running toward and crashing into each other.

In reaction, the alien intruder to her mind, the one she had dubbed "The Presence" earlier, rose inside her once more, took over her body, and moved several steps away from the truck, turning to the still burning fire.

As she looked at the twisted, flaming wreckage, a blinding pain shot through her head like a thunderbolt, and at the same moment, splinters of memories, shattered parts of her very being, started to assemble themselves again.

The Presence was behind this, she knew, it was somehow manipulating and editing her very brain, while she could only watch on in helpless agony, witness to a coldly calculated campaign of what Taylor thought resembled microsurgery on an advanced level.

How did she know that, anyway, and how on earth was she able to observe it at all?

Faster and faster, connections were made in her head, frayed synapses cut, and new ones formed in rapid succession.

Damaged engrams were transferred to new places, and a whole region of her gray matter was transformed, became some sort of hub, one whose function she couldn't comprehend at all.

An indeterminate time passed, until suddenly, something made "click" in the back of her mind, a Gordian knot was cut, and a flood of vital information came to her all at once.

In front of her "inner eye", the data making up large parts of her personality reassembled itself: knowledge, emotions, deeply rooted conditioning, and finally, her short term memory.

She gasped, overwhelmed by the /old/new/ - integrated information: she was Taylor Hebert, daughter of Danny and Annette Hebert, friend of Emma Barnes, and … victim of a fatal accident during an ongoing Endbringer attack, one she couldn't possibly have survived!

_**"Positive." **_

What?

She flung her body around, scanned the area behind her, took in the dozen or so infrared sources of people huddling together in the wind shadow of a truck 40 feet away, but there was no one who could've spoken into her ear like that.

Taylor raised her upper left hand to her head, pressing it against the right side of the cupola that was her cranium now, thinking hard.

She tried to consciously embrace the few memories that had formed in the last minutes, while "Taylor Hebert" as a functional person, hadn't really existed.

It took a lot of effort, but Taylor succeeded through sheer persistence, finally managing to square her experience as mentally amputated shell, her acceptance of some alien Presence taking over her body, the whole crazy "standing unharmed in the midst of a raging fire while in the body of a giant", with all the knowledge that had come back to her.

There was really only one conclusion that made any sense at all: while she had burned inside that bus - and by the way, why didn't she feel the slightest bit horrified by the fate of Nancy, Cleona and the others? - she had triggered.

She was a parahuman!

_**"Correct deduction." **_

Taylor gave a start, but calmed down quickly when she realized that the voice sounding in her ears had the exact same inflection as before, cool and considered, enriched with a subliminal current of ruthlessness.

"Is that you, Presence?" she formed a question in her mind, half hoping that she was having delusions, instead of having another, totally alien consciousness screwed onto her own, one which could even take over the body she was inhabiting, if it chose to do so.

_**"Positive."**_ it answered instantly, and despite its curtness, she could match the "sound" she heard with a mental signal emanating inside her own mindscape.

She "followed" it, and tracked it to something she remembered from the last seconds of her fugue, an area of her brain and mind that hadn't been there before, a hub which had been constructed by Presence.

She delved inside it, and discovered that it was a gateway, the only direct connection between her waking self and the humongous, unfathomable being that somehow shared her body with her.

Taylor tried to find out more, but when she poked that existence beyond the hub with her thoughts, trying to get inside, to understand at least some of it, she was ejected back out with the mental equivalent of a forceful push.

_**"No time for discovery. Later."**_ the Presence admonished her, sounding neither offended nor disappointed, but only coldly practical.

"What do you mean by that? And could you at least tell me who you are? Calling you "Presence" all the time is getting old fast."

_**"This urban concentration is currently under attack, sentients are dying."**_ the voice declared matter of factly.

A sudden burst of dread and anxiety rose up inside Taylor as she was reminded of Leviathan's assault on the city, but as fast as it appeared, the bubble of dark emotions dimmed down again, leaving Taylor confused and with a rising suspicion.

"Are you manipulating my feelings?" she asked accusingly.

_**"Yes. You can't fight while you are mentally unstable."**_ Presence answered unrepentantly.

"Fuck! I'm not your puppet! Who do you think you are?" Taylor screamed angrily inside her head, just before most of the emotion simply vanished into nothingness, leaving her feeling empty and stunned.

_**"This discussion must be postponed. Seismic shockwaves indicate that the fight has begun. Distance: Approximately five miles to the northeast." **_

For the first time since she was brought back from the fugue, Taylor sensed how Presence took over their shared body.

It was disconcerting, to say the least, but the negative emotional impact it should have had on her simply didn't materialize.

As their titanic body leaned forward and the lower pair of arms touched the ground, ready to spring into action, the Presence made itself heard once again.

_**"Taking away your agency like this is not an easy choice, but necessary. And to answer your earlier question about the identity of what you call "Presence": you are entering the battle at the side of Icho Tolot." **_

**1.5 **

Before Taylor could find a fittingly sharp reply to Presence's - or "Icho Tolot's", as the case may be - unapologetic statement that it was somehow "necessary" to make her into a helpless prisoner in her own body, they started to move.

Enormously powerful legs and lower arms catapulted their giant form forward, and in seconds, the site of the terrible accident vanished in the darkness and rain behind them.

Their body accelerated smoothly, barreling along the tarmac like a living avalanche, passing dozens of cars which had backlogged behind the crash and were now jamming the road to the _Lemuel Shattuck_ hospital.

Many people were walking, running and even hobbling in the direction of the shelter, some of them screaming at each other in open panic, but when they spotted their titanic frame approaching, they stopped in their tracks, some just to gape in shock and awe, others to hide behind park trees or vehicles.

Taylor didn't blame them after what she had seen of her body, but knew that if she or "Icho Tolot" had intended to find those in hiding, it would've been child's play with the nearly perfect infrared night vision their three eyes supplied.

That line of thinking brought her up short - what were their specific intentions anyway, or, put more realistically, those of the mysterious alien existence that had taken over her cape body?

Trying to formulate that question and putting it to "Tolot" with any clarity was getting harder by the second, mostly because their velocity was still increasing, and the world around was flying by in a mad spin.

Every few seconds, their direction changed radically, they were easily jumping over obstacles like cars and even trucks without loosing any speed, and they left deep gashes and holes in the pavement wherever their arms and legs impacted.

Taylor felt like she was trapped inside a rollercoaster car that had mutated into a tank while keeping its extreme mobility, a sensation that frightened and inspired her at the same time.

She was a freaking _cape_ now! Yes, in an ugly and monstrous form, and also the product of a traumatic disaster she couldn't process at the moment, but _still_!

What were her exact powers anyway? It was time to get some answers, she decided.

Blending out the mad, exhilarating race through Franklin Park they were performing, she managed to put a coherent question together in her mind, one that made very clear that she was still pretty miffed at the way she was being treated, in spite of "Tolot's" tampering with her emotions.

"Would you mind telling me what you plan to do with this body?" Taylor inquired, giving the question an unmistakably waspish mental emphasis.

_**"The attack on this city must be repulsed. Innocent lives must be protected." **_"Tolot" replied, his inflectionless "voice" making the sentences sound as if he had learned them by rote.

"Do you even understand what an Endbringer is, do you get that they are killing all kinds of capes, even the toughest ones, every time there is a fight?" she shot back, scared by the unquestioning certitude audible in the alien's answer.

_**"An analysis of your knowledge concerning the enemy was completed 3.246 minutes ago. Threat assessment regarding combatant "Leviathan" indicates no ability to hurt a fully functional Halutian." **_

A spike of interest shot through Taylor despite her fear. If this was true...

"So, what you are telling me is that my body is something called a "Halutian" now, and that it can go up against one of the three most dangerous monsters in the world, and stay unhurt?"

She tried to hide her hopeful speculation behind a somewhat skeptical coloring of her mental query, but didn't know if she succeeded - "Tolot" could probably read her mind, after all.

_**"Positive. This body can transform 99.9987% of its mass into a material that can withstand temperatures up to 35.000 Kelvin and kinetic forces common in highly relativistic spaceflight. It's ancestors were genetically engineered and optimized for galaxy spanning warfare. Icho Tolot's combat experience of multiple intergalactic wars and uncountable interstellar skirmishes is also available."" **_

For a few seconds, Taylor was too shocked by this declaration to react, she just stared at the scenery they were moving through like a living cannonball, at the houses of the residential neighborhood bordering Franklin Park that were flashing by.

It took her some time to recover from mental overload, but when she did, her apprehension shrunk and the desire to help the people of Boston, to assist the heroes in the good fight, surged.

If "Tolot's" claims were true, they might actually have a chance to attack Leviathan directly without being squashed like a bug!

But now that she was thinking again, something else confused her.

"Didn't you say you were Icho Tolot? Why are you talking of him in third person now?"

_**"This is the body of Icho Tolot, you are communicating with his planning brain."**_ was the rather unhelpful response.

"You aren't making any sense, how can you be this Tolot guys' brain, but not be him? That's insane!"

_**"Irrelevant for now. You must concentrate on the upcoming battle, estimated time of arrival: three minutes. Can capes volunteering to fight acquire advanced weaponry?" **_

Thrown by the announcement that she would be faced with a genocidal Endbringer in very short order, Taylor needed a moment to process the question "Tolot" had posed.

"Didn't you say we could attack Leviathan with this body alone?" she questioned him in alarm, her inner voice quivering involuntary from her rapidly rising terror.

_**"Positive. But your memory indicates that the enemy is a very hard target. It is advisable to arm Icho Tolot for maximum effect." **_

The clinical coldness with which "Tolot" - or whatever it was she was "talking" with - was treating the upcoming fight, against a creature she'd had actual nightmares about after seeing Newfoundland drowned, resulted in a paradoxical emotional mix for Taylor, three- thirds scalding fear, and one third fierce determination to do the best she could.

She put everything else away, banished it to the back of her mind, and focused on what she knew about Endbringer fights.

"I'm not sure if they have a mobile armory or something like that, but I saw a broadcast once about one of Armsmaster's Endbringer battles. He told the reporters that he always brings a duplicate of his tinkertech halberd with him."

_**"Accessing memory now... Excellent! A melee weapon like that plays to Icho Tolot's strengths in this combat environment." **_

For a fleeting instant, Taylor was proud of her very first contribution to their burgeoning heroing career, small as it was, but then they entered a wide street that was starting to flood, and the reality of their situation came down on her again, like a shower of the cold, dirty water they crashed into without slowing down.

Not far away, less than a mile if her estimate was correct, she could make out the towers of Boston's financial district.

Her sharp vision showed dozens of flying capes zipping around between the skyscrapers, firing downwards in direction of the harbor with every kind of weapon and power imaginable.

The strafing looked like a thunderstorm run amok, but she knew that it was a light breeze compared to Leviathan's tempest and his tidal waves.

As their massive body approached the battlefield, spraying huge fountains in every direction as it parted the water effortlessly, Taylor fought to harden her resolve, to remake her hate of the Endbringers and her desire to help the people of Boston into an adamantine spearhead.

They cleared one of the high rises blocking their view of the harbor, and got their first glance of the hulking, terrifying form of Leviathan.

The apocalyptic monstrosity moved around the waterfront with unbelievable speed, smashing ships, docks, capes and everything in its way, while the next tidal wave was already visible on the ocean to the east.

_**"First priority: find Armsmaster."**_ Icho Tolot's voice announced impassively.

**1.6 **

As they galloped up to the seaboard, Taylor's outlook on the world shifted radically from one second to the next, not because she was entering an Endbringer battle while locked in a humongous cape form that had come with its own volition, but literally.

Her vision blurred, and when it cleared again, she was somehow tracking the latest frontal assault by Alexandria on Leviathan, the building tidal wave out on the Atlantic, and the flying capes with ranged attacks directly above her head, all at the same time, at opposing angles and with different levels of magnification.

It was more than a bit disorienting, and it took her a moment to understand what was happening.

"You could've warned me that you were about to decouple our eyes, it gives me vertigo!" she snapped at Tolot.

_**"This is an active war zone, using reduced optical input was a courtesy to you, but optimum surveillance is needed now." **_was his blunt reply.

Before she could think of an appropriate comment, one of their three independently roving eyes fell on a tight cluster of capes who were standing atop a massive twenty story building directly at the shore.

At least a dozen parahumans behind the roof parapet were busy throwing up bright energy shields along the coastline in an attempt to hold back the rising water and prepare for the next incoming tidal wave.

Others hurled attacks of every imaginable kind towards the Endbringer, from blasts of white hot plasma to rapier-like violet lasers and projectile weapons.

Leviathan was evading most of the fire, and when he took a hit, he simply shrugged it off like an elephant would do to a mosquito bite.

_**"Coordinated defensive action detected. It is prudent to seek contact and inquire for Armsmaster's position." **_

"Sounds like the thing to do." Taylor agreed, although she was irritated that her first appearance as a cape would be directed by the strange being controlling her body, and not herself.

She was sure that without the emotional dampening that was still being applied to her, she would be furious bordering on raging madness.

Taylor was shocked out of her sullenness though, when Tolot posed a question she hadn't even entertained yet.

_**"Halutians consider it highly impolite to meet someone without introducing themselves. Do you have particular requests regarding your so called "cape name"? **_

"I've been a cape for less than twenty minutes, that's a bit short to come up with a great name, don't you think?" she bit out, frustrated that she didn't think of this herself.

_**"Very well, this form will be introduced as Icho Tolot then. It is a honorable name." **_

"Says the creepy alien who is body-jacking a fourteen year old girl." she muttered back, but Tolot ignored her.

He changed the direction of their headlong charge, and they started to ram their way through the surging seawater towards the concentration of fighters.

Despite her fear, the ease with which they withstood the onrushing flood felt magnificent to Taylor, like they were a highly mobile wave-breaker, powerful enough to just shrug off the pull and push of the at least six feet deep current surrounding them.

As they were closing in to the heroes position, she felt their speed go down noticeably, and their movements became somewhat less graceful and fluid, but she couldn't detect any change in the flowing water that could be responsible for the change.

"Why are we slowing down?" she demanded.

_**"This location is a priority target, the molecular structure of this body has been adapted to the higher threat level." **_

"Do you call that an explanation?"

_**"Icho Tolot's weight has increased by 46.000 pounds, due to changes of the molecular structure in the outer layers of the body, including muscles covering vital areas. Top speed was reduced to 42 miles per hour, maneuverability has decreased 23 percent. Survival chance against most known forms of physical assault is approaching 95%." **_

"You think Leviathan will attack here?" Taylor asked, her fear rising another notch.

_**"Currently projected probability of offensive action against this strong point in the next five minutes: 78%. Note that data on enemy tactics is severely limited." **_

"We must warn them, it looks as if all the best shielders are up there!"

_**"Positive." **_

They had nearly reached the building, when someone on top spotted them, and a cape stepped from the roof and started to glide down towards them.

He stood upright in the air, striking an imposing figure, while the brown burlap robe he wore fluttered in the storm, and the knotty staff in his right looked much more like a weapon than an old man's cane.

_**"Do you recognize this cape?" **_

Taylor's response to Tolot's simple question came slowly and disjointedly, her thoughts slightly jumbled by admiration and awe.

"Yeah... that's... wow, it's really him. I mean, eh... that's the leader of the Chicago Protectorate… he's called Myriddin, and… he's really, really powerful... like a real live Gandalf the Gray!"

Myriddin was one of the most famous parahumans in America, quite mysterious, and possibly just a bit barmy, especially if he actually thought that he was a wizard; the question if his cape persona was only a public relations stunt could provoke some talking heads on national television into heated discussions.

Taylor had seen him on the news countless time, fighting crime, busting villains and stepping up in Endbringer battles... and now he was here, and wanted to talk to her, Taylor Hebert, an unknown schoolgirl from Brockton Bay!

The parahuman celebrity stopped his descent about 20 feet above the raging waters, and kept a respectful distance from them.

"I'm Myriddin, Chicago Protectorate." he called to them, his clear and vibrant voice easily audible despite the raging storm around them.

"None of us up there," he pointed his staff to the building's top ",even the local heroes, have ever seen you before. Are you here to join the fight?"

Taylor was sure that she wouldn't have been able to produce a single coherent sentence if she'd been in control right now, she'd be too caught up at the thought of who was addressing her.

Icho Tolot on the other hand, seemed quite immune to teenage awkwardness, and being starstruck was the furthest thing from his mind.

_**"Greetings, Myriddin! To fight the abominable Endbringer at your side will bring great honor to Icho Tolot."**_ he declared formally, his rumbling, extremely deep bass cutting through the din of the storm even better than Myrridin's voice had.

Using their body's superior vision, Taylor could see how the Protectorate cape frowned slightly under his cowl, but obviously decided that this was not the time for questioning the new combatants' odd manner.

"Very well, Icho Tolot. May I ask what powerset you bring to the fight, so that I can assign you to one of our teams?" Myriddin inquired, adapting quickly to the very polite tone Tolot had set.

_**"Icho Tolot is a high end brute, he can fight Leviathan at close quarters." **_

Myrridin paused for the shortest of moments, and Taylor could see a flicker of surprise on his features.

She knew that the number of capes who were not only capable, but actually willing to engage an Endbringer in hand to hand combat was not very high.

"You should work with Alexandria and her group than, I can give you a communication band, wait a moment please."

He stuck his free hand into a pocket of his robe and started to rummage inside, but before he found the device he was searching for, he was interrupted by screams of alarm from the roof behind them.

Tolot rotated their head, quick like an automated gun turret on a modern naval ship, and their glowing red eyes registered the cause for the shouting in less than a microsecond.

Leviathan had tired of the murderous game of cat and mouse in the harbor, and was on a collision course with the shield wall at the coastline, riding atop his mighty tidal wave like a demonic surfer of doom.


	3. A Lily with thorns

**1.7 **

Taylor would never forget the heinous sight which presented itself in front of their eyes, it was a scene that could've sprung directly out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting.

The thirty feet frame of the Endbringer rushing towards them appeared indomitable, he was mounting the tide's crest like a horsemen of the apocalypse, and the five bilious green eyes in his lizard like skull glared at the defenders standing between him and the people of Boston with alien malignity.

If an abhorrent monstrosity like Leviathan could be said to have a facial expression at all, his seemed to be one of derisive challenge, calling on every single hero, on every parahuman in the city, to try and stand up to him and his might, only to be inevitably annihilated.

Taylor had just left middle school behind, had thought this to be a first important step towards adulthood, but now, she was suddenly one of those who had to defy the worst mass murdering fiend in human history.

What was happening to her was simply irreconcilable with the live she'd lead until half an hour ago, it was beyond her wildest imagination, and frightened her more than anything ever had.

At this instant, as the existence of countless human beings hung in the balance, and Taylor felt so very small, she admitted to herself that she was glad Tolot was with her, was taking the responsibility away from her, at least for now.

"Methinks you might be able to avail yourself of the opportunity to duel an Endbringer even sooner than expected." Myrridin's voice interrupted her moment of terror-induced insight .

The famed hero had closed the distance to them, and held out a sleek armband that was clearly some sort of tinkerfab.

"If you put this on, Dragon will constantly inform you of Leviathan's position - there are other uses, but I have no time to explain." he said hastily, obviously anxious to get back to his team.

Wordlessly, Tolot presented their upper right arm to Myrridin, and with a swift move, he put the band around their massive wrist.

„I took the liberty to already program it with your name, Icho Tolot. Good luck to you!" Myrridin gave them a quick bow, before he rocketed back into the sky in a very unwizardlike display of haste.

_**"This body should take up a position to intercept the enemy, in case he plans to strike Myrridin and his unit directly."**_ Tolot declared clinically, as unafraid as if this was not a live and death situation, but simply a formula to be resolved.

Their hulking frame battered its way through the rising flood towards the by now nearly invisible shoreline, two of heir eyes constantly scanning the area around them, while the third kept its focus on Leviathan, who had closed the distance to less than a thousand feet by now.

They reached one of the seaside corners of the tower, and with a perfectly coordinated move, Tolot punched their upper fists through the buildings cladding, grabbing hold of the massive steel beam beneath, and anchoring them against the upcoming tidal wave.

Taylor, huddling in a tight cranny of her own making inside their shared mindscape, couldn't help but be impressed by their body's feat, it had looked and felt totally effortless, like a child poking his finger into play-doh.

Tolot lowered their form into the water streaming into the city, until only the top of their head and their central eye were poking out.

Leviathan was only a few hundred feet out now, and nearing the wall of overlapping energy shields that the heroes had erected, his speed still increasing.

Around the hellish creature, the ocean was pummeled with the effects of dozens of powers and dense salvos from tinker weapons, huge clouds of vapor shot up every time an especially energy rich strike hit, only to be ripped apart in seconds by the raging storm and the air turbulences caused by Leviathan's passage.

_**"Icho Tolot's body will increase its density now, reaching a 100% rate of transformation in all body parts but the brain. This happens in preparation for impact, don't be alarmed if you should experience a slowdown of thought processes, that is an effect to be expected when the molecular structure in the outer layers of the ordinary brain is changed for your optimal protection." **_

"Wait! You can't just switch me off like a light bulb!" Taylor protested heatedly. She wanted to stay alert and experience whatever happened, horrific as it might be.

_**"The incoming wave has a crest height of 34 feet, its total kinetic energy reaches a yield comparable to a tactical nuclear weapon, albeit a small one. Structural change of at least 35% of the ordinary brain is recommended." **_

Still agitated, but resigned to being ignored after that second explanation, Taylor waited for the announced transformation, but as the tidal wave rushed in, her mind kept working as before.

She had no time to ask Tolot why he didn't force the change on her, though.

With a tremendous roar which tore the air asunder, and reminded Taylor of the sound of a rocket launch she'd seen once, millions of metric tons of water hit the wall of glowing energy erected by the heroes.

Leviathan's overwhelming attack, which had risen to a height unusual even by the standards the hydrokinetic had set in former engagements, probably because the much lower wave incoming from the ocean had been compressed when it entered the channel of Boston's inner harbor, struck home all along the coastline, from the North End to the Financial District, on a length of more than a mile.

The wave climbed up even higher along the shimmering field, pressing against the barrier with the mass and speed of thousands of freight trains.

Thin fissures appeared in the surface of the shield, lengthening rapidly, fusing together and broadening in some areas, but seconds passed, and there was no catastrophic failure.

Boston's defense stood, a mighty barrier holding back the deluge.

Taylor could see the rise of the tidal wave slow down when it reached a height of about 40 feet, and then it stopped, the apex crossed, and most of its energy poured into the shield.

To hold this dam of pure energy against such a massive attack was an enormous feat, and Taylor felt sure that only some of the world's best shielding capes, like Narwhal and Lady Photon, with Eidolon to support them, could have achieved this.

She'd just decided to share this thought with Tolot, deeply impressed by the power capes working together could harness, when the second blow fell.

Leviathan, who'd disappeared from view when the wave failed to shatter the heroes' field, rocketed out of the crest directly below a part of the shield that appeared especially strained.

If he had been unbelievable fast when moving over the water's surface before, his reappearance set new records - it produced a sonic boom that rattled over the area, while Leviathan smashed into the wall of energy with a force that would've been lethal for everyone who wasn't as invulnerable as an Endbringer.

Exactly as Leviathan had surely intended, the focused hit to a weak point was too much for the shield, and it was ripped apart, at first only in the immediate area around the impact, but quickly followed by a cascading failure at its whole length.

The pent-up, towering tidal wave followed gravity and the momentum of still inflowing water, and crashed down on the shore.

Taylor's perception became sluggish, her thoughts muddled, and a thick, scaled lid snapped closed over the Halutian body's central eye.

**Interlude - Sting**

Lily leaned back into the uncomfortably hard passenger's seat of the Ford Taurus which the PRT public relations bureau used to haul her through the countryside, and tried to shake off the severe frustration she felt, while she slowly drank from a huge paper cup of coffee.

Her PRT minder, a sharply dressed, utterly humorless professional she had to call "Mrs. Mueller" even after the tenth trip they made together, had parked the car on the mostly deserted lot of this Starbucks in Newburgh (NY), and was still inside, doubtlessly retouching her makeup for their last performance of the day, at a summer camp in the Hudson Highlands.

Lily hated these PR tours with a passion, she'd start to get into a dark mood days before one of them was scheduled, and it took her great efforts to hide her distaste for the whole thing from the audiences.

She had nothing against younger kids, even liked the open and carefree enthusiasm with which most of them greeted her – or to be more precise, her cape persona.

And to create a good impression of the Wards early on, to get as many newly triggered young capes into the program as possible, made a certain sense too, and appealed to her sense of justice.

No, what she detested about the PR work was that she couldn't be herself with the children, but had to endlessly regurgitate the same mindless propaganda, event after event, in schools, clubs and youth camps alike.

There was no individuality allowed, she mused bitterly, only prefabricated sound bites that made her look like a cardboard cutout heroine.

Her discontent intensified when she saw Mrs. Mueller leaving the café - her small respite was over.

But before the agent could reach the car, Lily's PRT issued smartphone went off with a loud, piercing alarm.

It was an unmistakable sound, one she'd heard only once before, when it had been installed to her phone on her sixteenth birthday, about six weeks ago – the first responders warning of an incoming Endbringer attack.

Terror gripped her for a moment, paralyzed her while the phone's shrill whistling got more intense.

She'd known that this would happen, of course, had tried to mentally prepare herself for the moment she would be called upon to face one of the monsters for the first time, but it was much too soon.

One in four capes going up against an Endbringer died, oftentimes even more, and while the ordinary work of a frontline Ward like herself wasn't easy or safe, it was still far removed from what was looming over her now.

She shook herself, gritted her teeth, and stamped on the fear like she'd learned to do long ago.

There was no time to squander on a useless emotion like that, even seconds counted now.

She pulled out the phone and checked the data accompanying the alarm - it was effective for the entire east coast, Leviathan had apparently been spotted in the northern Atlantic, and was heading west, his final destination unknown.

When Mrs. Mueller opened the door, she was already on the line, talking to the New York Ward's leader, Jouster, at headquarters, organizing transportation for herself.

The play of questions and answers between them was crisp, and when she cut the connection, she knew what to do.

"There has been an Endbringer alarm," she informed the public relations agent, and wasn't very ashamed for the cynical amusement she felt deep down, when she saw the bureaucratic powerwoman instantly reduced to a distressed and helpless civilian, who went deathly pale under her thick makeup.

"Take me to the local police station, I need a safe place for a teleporter to arrive in," she ordered her previous minder curtly, and savored the instant change of roles this otherwise terrible emergency had caused.

Flechette promised herself to remember this moment for years to come - if she lived that long.

Five minutes later, she was pacing up and down the dingy break room in the back of the Newburgh police building, impatience tearing at her agitated mind.

A quiver holding the long iron bolts for her weapon was slung over her muscular back, while her trusty arbalest rested on her right shoulder, ready for action.

Flechette knew that she wasn't a first priority passenger for the few Protectorate teleporters who had a power versatile enough to grab her from here and transport her to Boston in an instant, but that didn't make the long wait any more bearable.

Maybe she should've insisted on driving back to New York, going against Joust's orders?

But no, what would that accomplish, besides making it harder for a teleporter to locate her in a moving car?

She struggled for more control over her spinning thoughts, and managed to sit down on one of the rickety chairs the cops had placed in the room, but she sprang up again only a minute later, when Dragon's live feed running on her phone informed her that everyone else from the New York Protectorate, including the Wards who were allowed to take part in Endbringer battles, had just arrived in place.

They may be dying right this second, for all she knew, and she was chained here, useless to her teammates and the population of Boston alike!

She suppressed a scream of rage, and increased the speed of her walking, tried to push her churning emotions away through sheer willpower.

Hanging in the air like this also caused the niggling doubt she'd had about how much her power was really worth in the eyes of the PRT's leadership to resurface with a vengeance.

The brass had pushed for her to attend Endbringer fights since they'd first learned the details of her ability to change objects of all kinds, preferably weapons, into a physics-breaking state that punched or cut through every known material.

Now that she'd been forgotten here in the backcountry, the whole brouhaha they'd made about her appeared like so much rubbish.

It didn't help her confidence that many of her ideas about the use of her power had been brushed aside as "too dangerous and gory for a Ward" in the case of the rapier she'd initially used, or "too costly" when she had applied for tinkermade powerarmor, which would've allowed he to become a lethal close quarters fighter.

She was staring at the screen of her phone, willing it to give her another morsel of information about her team, when a loud sound behind her, not unlike a backfiring car, made her spin on her heels.

"At last!" she greeted the teleporter who had appeared a dozen feet away.

He was a middle aged man with a physics themed costume who called himself "Curvature", a name that had doubtlessly been utilized to make many immature jokes at his expanse, none of them to do with the spacial phenomenon discovered by Einstein.

She'd met him once before, for the only reason that his parahuman ability allowed him to only locate and teleport people he'd seen face to face, and whom he could remember with a high degree of accuracy.

Curvature ignored the less than friendly reception stoically.

He simply walked over to her and grasped her left hand for the contact he needed to teleport her.

Then, he presented her with a tinkertech armband of some sort.

"This is the newest version of Dragon's combat communicator, it's an add on to your Protectorate radio system, mainly for talking with independents and villains. It's preset with your data."

She nodded wordlessly, and put the band on.

"Let's be gone." she demanded, her thoughts already on the battlefield.

"One more thing," he said flatly, brushing off her request for speed.

"Eidolon requires your presence at his command post, to finally check the hypothesis that your power will effect Leviathan in the same way it does everything else."

Flechette felt as if he'd slapped her in the face, and she stared at him with her mouth standing wide open.

"That's bullshit, my place is with my team!" she finally spat, enraged by this out of the blue decision from up high, and not caring at all that one of the Triumvirate wanted to see her.

She stepped back quickly, and tried to pull her hand away from Curvature's, but he held her tightly, and before she could succeed, he whisked her away.

They arrived on a roof that existed in a state of bedlam.

In less than a second, before she could even get her bearings, the downpour that pelted her whole body had already drenched her to the bone.

A blast of wind hit her so hard that she stumbled away from Curvature, who promptly vanished, the popping sound he usually produced nearly inaudible over the howling of the storm and the constant booms and explosions caused by the diverse crowd of capes who stood at the balustrade, facing outwards.

She leaned into the storm and moved forward, her hot anger somewhat cooled in the face of the terrible tempest Leviathan had conjured.

Eidolon was easy to spot, he floated in the air slightly behind and above a cluster of capes, one of them the distinct form of Narwhal with her mighty horn.

Flechette fought her way through the rain and wind towards them, and when she reached the group, she took a quick look over the rim of the roof.

From what she could see, she deduced that Eidolon and his people were maintaining the shining wall of energy that ran along the barely visible coastline below their position, and which was the only thing holding back the churning waters of the sea.

In the distance, the monstrous figure of Leviathan, so much more real than on even the best TV screen, was racing over the ocean, and as she watched, his afterimage smashed into a utility ship moored at the harbor authority's dock, causing some sort of flammable cargo to ignite in a spectacular explosion.

With a shiver at the casual destruction, Flechette turned to Eidolon and stood at attention, something most capes didn't bother with outside of official events, despite the fact that the Protectorate was a recognized branch of the PRT, which in turn was an armed government organization.

She used the extraordinary formality as a subtle demonstration of defiance, to make this meeting as much about his power over her as possible.

It was a way to show Eidolon and the others that she did not approve of his methods, and they couldn't even punish her for it.

"Flechette reporting as ordered!" she barked, loud enough to be heard over the din of the raging elements.

The triumvir turned to her, but didn't react for a long moment, as if he tried to cold read her just from looking at her mask, which wasn't impossible, given his abilities.

Or maybe he was just distracted by whatever he was doing with the shield out there... no use in over-thinking things.

Flechette had met Eidolon a few times before, mostly when he visited with Legend at the New York Protectorate HQ, but she had never been able to form an opinion on him.

On the one hand, he was part of the Triumvirate, a hero who was at every Endbringer battle, who was widely seen as the most powerful man on the planet, only exceeded by Scion and the Endbringers.

On the other hand, he had always seemed distant and cold to her, the polar opposite of Legend.

His newest brainchild, to separate her from her teammates just on his personal whim, made her feel that he was more enemy than ally, though.

"It is good to have you with us at last, Flechette." Eidolon said, just as the silence between them threatened to become awkward.

She didn't reply to his words, determined to let him do as much of the talking as possible, so that she didn't ruin her career by mouthing off in her furor.

"As you can imagine, you are here because I want you to hit Leviathan with your power, but," he made a portentous pause, and raised his hand to point at her in warning, like some oldfashioned teachers did with their students ",only when you are in the perfect position, close enough that he can't conceivably evade."

"Typical," she thought to herself "they demand something nearly impossible, but expect it to happen anyway - or else!"

"I would prefer it if you managed a headshot, but aiming for his torso should do if it guarantees a strike." he went on.

She nodded her understanding, her face politely bland, but inside, Flechette was boiling.

Eidolon wanted her to become his glorified sniper, the girl with the golden arrow, and for that, he had deprived her whole Wards team of her much needed firepower.

"Until Leviathan comes closer and your moment arrives, you should support Myrddin and his group." Eidolon said, and waved towards the wizard cape, who was coordinating the efforts of several blasters and other ranged attackers to strike at Leviathan.

She confirmed the order and stepped back from the balustrade, but instead of going over to Myrddin immediately, where she would be useless given the current situation, she wandered along the sides of the roof, looking down at the flooded ground and the surrounding buildings.

She was forming a picture of the location in her mind, doing exactly what her trainers in New York had hammered into her skull.

After nearly two years of duty as a Ward, she followed their good advise without question, it had saved her ass often enough to prove its merit.

Reaching the opposite side of the roof, she stared down at the city center of Boston, and send a quick prayer up to heaven for all the civilians who were hiding somewhere in this area, hopefully in the limited protection provided by the Endbringer shelters.

She had just decided to turn back and go over to Myrddin, when she detected movement in one of the flooded streets leading to their position.

Taking another look, she was shocked to see a huge monster cape ram his way through the swelling water, splashing it dozens of feet in every direction and leaving a massive wake behind him.

The newcomer was at least ten feet in height, and his three red eyes were set in an enormous, dome shaped head.

The whole body was covered in black, scaly skin, but the most striking thing about the unknown cape were his arms.

He had four of them!

Flechette had of course met Case53s before, had even fought some of them who had turned villain back home in New York... but this guy down there, plowing through the floods in their direction like an unstoppable dreadnaught of old, was something else.

He looked menacing in a way that reminded her of the Endbringer out there in the harbor, as if someone had deliberately designed his appearance to terrorize his enemies into submission.

As she tipped her PRT issued com, which had automatically linked itself to the Boston combat net when she was teleported in, she decided to report the new arrival to Myrddin instead of Eidolon, with whom she didn't want to talk at the moment, and who had seemed preoccupied anyway.

"Flechette to Myriddin," she spoke into the tiny microphone installed inside her mask

"I've spotted a monstrous cape, maybe Case53, coming in our direction from Boston proper. I can't ID him, but going by my observations, he's at least a Brute 2 or 3, probably higher. Orders?"

"Myrddin here, I'll come over and investigate, will bring a Boston cape too for identification," the leader of the Chicago Protectorate answered.

She continued to keep an eye on the approaching cape, who looked more scary by the second, from the bulging muscles of his four massive arms, to the sharp teeth in his mouth, which seemed to be nearly as long as her arbalest bolts.

Judging by the identical coloration of his head and body, he was fully naked, a fact that only raised her concerns, because it was a pointer for a maladjusted individual.

Myrddin arrived beside her, accompanied by one of the blasters he'd been working with.

The two adults stared down at the unknown cape, for long seconds, before the Boston cape shook his head.

"Never seen this guy before, and let me tell you, he would've real problems to hide himself. Look at those teeth!"

Myrddin chuckled mirthlessly.

"Thank you for taking a look at our guest, you should head back and put it to Leviathan, I'll deal with this."

The other man just nodded and turned away, while Myrddin studied the mystery cape.

"You will give me cover from up here, and I'll fly over and talk to him." he told her.

Flechette only nodded.

What happened in the next minute was one of the strangest meetings she'd ever witnessed.

She'd been listening to the conversation via Myrddin's comlink, her finger close to the trigger and the crosshairs of her weapon over the stranger's menacing central eye, but most of her tension fell away when the new cape, who called himself Icho Tolot, started to wax poetic about honor, and claimed that he could face Leviathan in single combat.

Just the usual crazy cape, it seemed, only fitted with an appearance that could alarm the most hardened hero.

Suddenly, people started to shout behind her, and an operator on the combat network gave a garbled warning that Leviathan was coming to shore.

With a last look down to Myrddin, she made sure that the situation was in hand, then she sprinted back over to the seaside rim of the roof as quick as the storm and rain allowed.

When she arrived, she spotted Leviathan rushing towards the coast, very close now, and her throat went dry with dread.

She checked her weapon one last time, more for her own comfort than because she was worried over its serviceability.

If she was very lucky, she could write history today, even if Eidolon's shield wall gave way.

The tidal wave hit, and everything happened in a rapid succession that gave her emotional whiplash, first hope that it would hold, then the fissures, and still it stood strong, only to fall to Leviathan's final and totally unbelievable supersonic strike.

The shield disintegrated, fizzled away as if it had never been, and Flechette tried to find her target, but the Endbringer had fallen back into the wave of his own making, and had disappeared.

A few feet to her right, Eidolon shot into the air and raced northwards, hands glowing in the green light characteristic for him.

Flechette could only stare at the catastrophe happening on the ground, the thundering mass of water that battered its way into the city and swept along everything that wasn't set in steel and concrete.

News stands, cars, sailing boats, fish trawlers, trash, drowned sailors from ships sunken in the harbor, everything was pressed into the gaps between the buildings.

But mostly of course, it was water that rushed in, so much of it that the three lowest floors of the building they were standing on were fully submerged.

"Cheery Man down, CD3." a digital voice coming from her wrist said in a flat tone, and followed up with a long litany of names, most of whom she'd never heard before.

"Tungsten deceased, CD5; Hammerhead down, CD3; Icho Tolot deceased, CD3..."

Huh? The monster cape had drowned down there?

Flechette was more surprised than sad, she hadn't known the Tolot guy, after all, but she'd thought that he looked tough enough to survive the wave.

Hadn't he claimed that he could fight it out with Leviathan hand to hand?

The sorry megalomaniac!

She was ripped from her cheerless thoughts by a chorus of screams.

"Leviathan sighted, CD3" Dragon's armband declared laconically, while Flechette was already sprinting over to the northward edge of their roof, preparing herself once again to fire her bolt, and find out if it was golden, or filled with lead, after all.

The first capes around her began to fire at Leviathan, who had appeared on the frothing water only 200 feet away from the base of their tower.

He looked slightly worse for wear, his right shoulder, probably the one that hit the shield wall, was covered in black ichor, and the rightmost of his eyes was crushed, but these wounds didn't slow him down at all.

The Endbringer was toying with them, smashing the buildings around him with his afterimage, while he raced over the water like a demented skater with a rocket drive on his back.

Flechette turned her sights on the Endbringer, and powered the bolt loaded into her weapon.

She brought the arbalest up and waited for her chance.

Estimating the distance accurately was hard, the monster was changing his position too fast to get a bead on him.

Even by using the second aspect of her power, which gave her a nearly unbeatable sense for direction and timing, it appeared impossible to hit Leviathan in the main mass of his body, not to speak of the headshot Eidolon had demanded.

Flechette saw Alexandria and Legend shooting through the air in her direction, coming in from the north, and she hoped that the two triumvirs would nail the Endbringer down with their powers, which might give her a window of opportunity.

"Icho Tolot alive, CD 3." the voice of Dragon's device announced.

While she was still processing the confusing message, a black flash erupted from the fourth floor of the building closest to Leviathan, and smashed into the Endbringer's head like the fist of God.

Leviathans' enormous frame was thrown back into the churning waves, and landed with a splash that catapulted tons of water high into the air.

It looked as if something entirely new had just entered the fight, Flechette thought, and the awestruck silence of the capes around her proved her correct.


	4. First Smackdown

Worm and Perry Rhodan belong to their owners.

**2.1 **

Like probably every child of the early 21st century, Taylor had occasionally harbored dreams and fantasies of becoming a cape.

Sometimes, she'd imagined herself with a power like Alexandria's, as an invulnerable shining heroine who would descend out of the sky to save Brockton Bay from the gangs, at others, she'd hoped to become a tinker like Dragon.

As one of the techno-capes, she could've supplied everyone with useful gadgets and weapons, or could've even repaired the harbor ferry to fulfill her dad's ambitions for the revival of the dock worker's union.

But now, while her new "Halutian" body was fully submerged in a torrent of debris-filled seawater, lurking beneath the raging waves to ambush the island sinking monster known as Leviathan, Taylor realized that all her earlier yearnings and speculations had been infantile and simplistic, outright laughable compared to undergoing the effects of superpowers firsthand.

Enduring a structural change of her brain that made her feel like a dimmed down version of herself, only to be thrown back into the deadly reality of her situation with a disorienting lurch, was the least of the things she was experiencing that differed from her preconceptions about life as a cape.

Much more daunting than these rather technical - if disconcerting - aspects of her power was the oppressive mortal fear she was feeling despite Tolot's tampering with her brain.

Maybe she was developing a resistance against his methods of emotional manipulation?

Anyway, the feeling was truly agonizing, and would be paralyzing her right now if Icho Tolot weren't at the helm of their shared form.

That sort of extreme emotion, combined with the fact that it needed an Endbringer attack and a horrific traffic accident for her to gain powers, hadn't been even imaginable to her before she became a cape herself.

How could it be worth the cost to others and herself?

_**"Stop distracting yourself with useless reflections, Leviathan has reappeared."**_ Tolot's voice interrupted the flow of her thoughts.

Sure enough, when she concentrated on it, she saw the Endbringer fill the field of vision of their central eye, which was currently sticking out of the flood on a 15 inch long stalk, much like a biological periscope.

She saw that once again, Leviathan was using the agility his power granted him, as long as he stayed over water, to evade most of the fire directed at him.

He slammed his afterimage and tail into the fundaments of every human made structure in his vicinity, smashing not only windows, but whole fronts of buildings, even collapsing some of the smaller ones in the process, only to race over to the next one in fractions of a second, repeating the process.

Someone a whole lot nerdier than Taylor, like Greg from school at home for example, might've drawn an analogy between Leviathan's movements and the behavior of the ball in a pinball machine, mostly in order to distract himself from the approaching fight, but she wouldn't do that of course, because it was a callow thing to think in the face of all the destruction Leviathan was dealing out.

_**"The wounds in the enemy's right shoulder and the rightmost eye appear to be severe, especially if the visible rate of blood loss is taken into account, but there is no corresponding slowdown in his attacks."**_ Tolot analyzed their observations, eschewing to comment on her absurd ideas about arcade games.

"Well, he's an Endbringer, no one knows how his powers work."

_**"Or such information has not been made public."**_ Tolot corrected her.

"That's possible too," Taylor admitted grudgingly, not comfortable with the thought that the good guys could be hiding such important information from everyone, but not willing to argue the point at the moment.

She felt as if her inner tension was nearing a breaking point as their body was closing in on Leviathan, half wading and half swimming through the flood, permanently adjusting their molecular structure to achieve optimal buoyancy.

Tolot used the two eyes under the waterline to avoid hitting any obstacles larger than a compact car, which was made trivially easy by their infrared sight.

Apparently, lack of oxygen was not a problem either, their body seemed to have huge reserves on which they could draw for hours - their form was an actual living submarine!

_**"It is unfortunate that Icho Tolot was not able to acquire a weapon before contact to the enemy was established. This will complicate the fight."**_ Tolot stated rather abruptly.

"He really isn't a good conversationalist," Taylor thought, a bit irrelevantly.

"With our durability, you could just pummel Leviathan like a punching bag, you know." she suggested a heartbeat later, with false cheer, driven to flippancy by the fact that their body had now entered an intersection the Endbringer was crisscrossing ever so often in his rampage.

"Or were those alien masterminds who you claim designed our body too fixated on advanced weapons to consider giving you instinctive unarmed combat skills?" she needled Tolot further.

There was no reaction to her rambling - Tolot was really terrible at mollifying her, he didn't even try!

"I haven't even been in a schoolyard scuffle before this, you know! If you want me to stare a genocidal monster down, you could at least try to assure me a bit! " Taylor thought at Tolot in a snit, feeling that the silent treatment the alien was giving her was petty, considering their situation.

_**"Combat calculation complete: this body will engage the enemy with a high speed collision to the head, which should at the very least unbalance him, while at the same time positioning Icho Tolot for follow up attacks on the remaining eyes in order to blind the enemy." **_

Taylor shuddered at the mechanical tone of Tolot's statement, which sounded as if he did things like this all the time, but she suppressed her unease, telling herself that everything that increased their efficiency was a net positive right now, regardless of ethical considerations about the bloody-mindedness of her head's cohabitant.

In fact, his ruthless coldness could be seen as a soldier's professionalism, something that ought to hearten her own resolve!

_**"In order to achieve maximum speed and surprise, an unflooded hiding place inside a building is required. Optical search for ambush site under way..." **_

At the same moment Tolot made this announcement, Leviathan came into view again, rushing towards them, a blur of claws and spraying water, but Tolot kept moving in the same direction as before, undeterred.

Taylor for her part hunkered down in their mindscape, instinctively bracing for a collision.

"Get out of the way, get out of the way!" she screamed at Tolot when the thirty feet colossus was nearly upon them.

Half a second later, the Endbringer passed directly in front of their hidden form, less than 15 feet away, and Taylor's internal shouting stopped, giving way to indignant embarrassment.

Tolot simply ignored it all, and under steady guidance, their body entered the monster's wake and followed it, their underwater cruising speed increasing greatly as they were caught up in the current.

Taylor's thoughts slowed down suddenly, and almost simultaneously, their eyestalk was pulled back in, and their body burst through a wall and into a building.

From what Taylor could see when her brain was restored to full function, they had "entered" a shop selling diving supplies.

In any other situation, she might've found the irony of a flooded scuba store more than slightly amusing, but here and now, it just reminded her of the great many salvage divers the city of Boston would need in the near future, who would doubtlessly have to fill many body bags.

Tolot, intent on losing no time, disregarded the fact that most buildings provide such things as stairs for vertical movement, and simply jumped up, breaking through the shop's ceiling with casual ease.

They took a few steps to the side, only to repeat the same mighty leap, and crashed up into the next floor.

Not all of the office room they found themselves in was flooded, but the water was still pretty high, which prompted Tolot to repeat his very peculiar form of ascend one more time.

As soon as they reached the floodwater free fourth floor, this time inside the large, opulent conference room of a law firm, which was dominated by a mahogany table as black as their body's skin, Tolot ripped the brocade draperies from the window, broke the glass along the way, and scanned for Leviathans' position.

The Endbringer was nearly a block away.

"How do you plan to strike him with what you called a "high speed impact" if even the heroes who were with Myrrdin on that high rise could barely hit him with their weapons?" Taylor asked a question she had wondered about for the last minute.

She'd finally found the courage to ask after the embarrassment caused by her previous overreaction had subsided.

_**"Icho Tolot's senses are excellent, in this case his ears will be of special utility." **_

"Ears? This body doesn't even have any, at least not visible ones!" she protested, remembering what she had seen of the smooth surface of their domed head back at the accident site.

_**"Negative, this forms's ears are able to hear Leviathan closing on its position while he is still far away." **_

While Tolot was still "speaking" to her, she felt in amazement how two ears unfolded themselves, deploying from small holes in the side of their dome shaped head.

When the ears had stopped unfurling, Tolot sprung into action.

First, their body demolished the conference table into splinters with a few quick blows of their massive fists, until the room was mostly free of obstacles, then they turned around and stormed towards the room's door, destroying it off-handedly by passing through it, as if it was just a curtain, and not solid wood.

The next minute saw them bulldoze the whole floor, smashing walls, doors and windows until there were two straight, 50 yards long passages running from each exterior wall of the building to the opposite one, crossing in the middle.

Their body took up a position on that newly formed intersection in the midst of Halutian inflicted devastation.

They faced the conference room Tolot had entered first, already down on the lower arms and ready to explode into an all out run at a moment's notice.

"You haven't really explained your plan." Taylor complained,

"I mean, good for us that our body has actual ears, but I still say it's impossible to hit Leviathan while he passes this building, especially if you have to take a run up first. He's unbelievably fast!"

_**"Icho Tolot's planning brain is able to calculate Leviathan's position with a margin of error of about 20 feet as soon as the enemy enters a radius of 250 yards around this form. The major sound reflecting surfaces in the area, the air temperature, humidity, and the sound pressure level caused by his movement, must be at least roughly known to achieve a successful computation, of course." **_

"That's insane, are you telling me we have radar ears like ..."

Taylor's question was cut off abruptly as their body moved fluidly backwards inside the corridor their titanic frame had formed, until the outer wall was directly behind them.

_**"You will undergo a temporary blackout while this body hits and engages Leviathan."**_ Tolot' informed her impassively, and Taylor didn't protest this time, knowing that Tolot would do whatever he saw as required action.

"This is it now," Taylor thought, rolling herself up into an embryonic position, at least metaphorically.

Would she ever see Emma again, or get another hug from her dad?

If she'd been in control of their tear ducts - she wasn't sure if Halutians even had such anatomical features - she would be crying right now, but in her current state, she was reduced to the mental equivalent of deep, wracking sobs.

Why didn't Tolot brush these feelings of terror and longing for her loved ones away like her anger at him? It would've been so much easier to endure this!

She felt their body start it's sprint, speeding up faster than it had ever before, and despite herself, she peeked out of their eyes, unable to look away when her live was at stake.

The last feet of the ruined law firm's office sped by, and Leviathan came into view, the epitomization of death and destruction.

Taylor's perceptions began to slow down as they reached the take-off point, but she could still feel Tolot making last second adjustments to their trajectory, even as his powerful limbs shot them into the air and at a point the Endbringer would pass in a few hundredths of a second.

Her thought process ceased abruptly as the brain matter constituting Taylor's mind was structurally changed into a substance harder than anything humans in this universe had ever developed, denser than the best tinker armor and durable enough to withstand everything short of a direct hit with high yield atomic weapons.

More than 99.97% of the Halutian planning brain that had guided their body to this point was transformed as well, until only a tiny and specialized cluster of cells was left.

It was surrounded by impenetrable armor, protected by shock absorbing gel, and was entrusted with the only task to kickstart the reconversion of the body into a preprogrammed state, which would be still armored up on the outside, and ready for action against Leviathan.

After an interval of less than two seconds, the entity Taylor called "Icho Tolot" was back online, while keeping the ordinary brain in a suspended state at the same time.

It immediately accessed damage levels to the body - _**none detected**_ \- and took in data on the enemy.

Their collision had thrown the two mighty frames down into the churning flood, mostly following the Halutian's vector of movement.

Tolot's temporary weight of more than 150 tons, combined with a ramming speed of 70 mph had won out over Leviathan's higher velocity.

There was a deep dent in the side of the Endbringer's head, one into which Tolot's chest was pressed, while his four arms were clasped around the monster's head in a vicelike grip, exactly as the planning brain had intended before shutting itself down.

The Endbringer was already reacting to the surprising assault, obviously neither concussed or otherwise impaired.

He tried to wrench the offending Halutian away from the remains of his ugly, ichor covered face, his lethal claws scratching and punching at the attacker in a frenzy, but they simply glanced off impotently.

Even Leviathans' superpowered strength and deadly talons were not up to flinging the thirty-tons killing machine that was Icho Tolot away, at least not without a lot more effort.

The Endbringer's afterimage was conspicuous in its absence, possibly rendered inoperative because the monster was pinned to the ground.

The planning brain maintained its hold on the enemy, pushing the rearing and struggling monster down, keeping him in place through sheer heft.

Leviathan's tail slashed through the water, but his prone position on the ground and the Halutian's placement at the other end of his body made it nearly impossible for the Endbringer to land a blow with the appendage.

Two of Leviathan's eyes had survived the impact, and after digging Tolot's other hands even deeper into the Endbringer's thick skin, the planning brain jotted out with its left upper arm, and hit one of the balefully staring orbs with tremendous force, spraying even more dark gore into the air.

A devastating followup punch, which targeted the second eye, managed to connect as well, but Leviathan's claws caught Tolot's bent arm on the rebound, grasping the elbow before it could be pressed back firmly into the the monster's skin.

The brute force both of the Endbringer's arms were bringing to bear was swiftly overpowering even the massive muscles of the Halutian's limb, and it had to be abandoned to a full transformation, freezing it up and making it unable to move even an inch in any direction.

Leviathan didn't notice the change for a moment and kept up the attack, but it was only a question of seconds before he would adjust.

The simplest way to regain control of the upper left arm was to give up the hold on the monster's head and engage in literal hand to hand combat, but that would instantly end the advantage Tolot had gained by using the Halutian's superior weight on the Endbringer's head, where it could unfold maximum leverage effect against Leviathan's strong legs.

Giving up on this hold would restore the enemy's high mobility - which was one of his greatest assets both against Tolot, and against the other parahuman forces defending the city of Boston - after it had been canceled for only 4.5 seconds.

Most of the other combatant's hadn't even started to engage Leviathan's prone form, obviously victims of typical human surprise and low processing speed.

Before the planning brain reached a decision, new factors to the equation arrived.

Alexandria and Legend, two fighters who held central positions in Taylor's memories about and conceptualization of capes, dashed into view from behind a skyscraper to the north, and were closing in rapidly.

At the same time, bright shields sprang up all around the wrestling forms of Endbringer and Halutian, surrounding them in a tight circle of energy that left them little space for movement.

The cage created by powers unknown to the planning brain was open on top, and as the group around Myrddin finally overcame their surprise and commenced firing, they poured their attacks through this uncovered space.

They were clever enough to target Leviathan's legs for the most part, as far way from Tolot's form as possible, but one either very confident or terrifyingly bad marksman send a slightly glowing bolt into Leviathan's upper torso.

It was very fast, but not quite fast enough to make it undetectable to Tolot's enhanced senses.

The projectile punched through the Endbringer's skin without effort, and made ichor explode around the wound.

Leviathan redoubled his struggles against Tolot, rolling his whole torso to one side, but was unable to move the head with the rest of the body, due to the enormous weight holding it to the ground.

The Endbringer's neck looked as if it was about to rip open under the stress, and it was bend in an angle that would've undoubtedly killed an unpowered human.

The planning brain concluded from the monster's reaction that the bolt it had seen was an effective weapon against Leviathan, but couldn't spare any more processing power to this discovery, because time was finally up.

Leviathan had seen through the immobilization of the upper left arm, and stopped attacking it.

Instead, he used it to gain purchase against Tolot's hold, and threw all his power into jerking the Halutian away, while the water around them erupted into the afterimage, apparently freed by the Endbringer lying on its side.

Tons of water were hurled at the back of Tolot's body in an instant, and combined with the effort of Leviathan's arms, it proved too much.

The planning brain lost its hold on the Endbringer's head, and the Halutian form was thrown into the churning maelstrom, where it displaced copious amounts of water, before being drilled into the ground through the body's own gargantuan weight.

Leviathan jumped upwards and regained his footing in a single move, slashing out at Tolot with both his tail and the afterimage.

The heavy blows were unable to hurt the Halutian body, but they kept the massive frame stumbling, driving it back further and towards the shields enclosing them.

Momentum had shifted, and the planning brain acknowledged that it had to formulate a new tactic for the battle, one that included the contributions of the parahumans who were entering the fray.

Indeed, losing hold of the Endbringer had not only produced negative results - the amount of firepower brought to bear had increased enormously after the Halutian had been dislodged, especially Legend was pouring regular salvos of lasers into the monster, driving it back and away from Tolot.

No, simply closing in again and grappling with Leviathan would deprive everyone else of the ability to attack, it was a bad tactic.

If the planning brain would've had the ability to feel regret, it would've chosen this moment to lament its lack of a traditional Halutian interval gun, which could most probably blow massive holes even into an Endbringer.

Another of the mysterious bolts the Halutian had seen before hit home, this time targeting Leviathan's head, impacting on the upper left side.

The monster swayed and faltered for an instant, obviously in pain, while a flood of blood sprayed from the point of entry and the even larger exit hole at an area of Leviathan's skull that would be called "chin" if he had a human anatomy.

The planning brain traced the projectile's flight path with ease, and found that it had been fired from the roof holding Myrddin's group of capes, most probably by a girl clad in a skintight costume with a visor covering her eyes, nose and ears.

She was pointing a massive crossbow towards the Endbringer while she was reloading her weapon, and the Halutian biological computer concluded that whatever power this young woman was using, was highly effective and one of the very few powers that could deal anything approaching real harm to Leviathan.

Unfortunately, the Endbringer had arrived at the same conclusion.

Shrugging of Legend's lasers and any other weapon and power smashing into him, Leviathan sank down on his hunches, only to rocket up into the sky on a huge column of water.

He left Tolot and the energy cage behind him, punched aside Alexandria, who tried to intercept his flight path, with a swipe of his tail, and crashed through the face of the tower that sheltered Myrddin and the crossbow sniper on its roof.


	5. Wheeling and Healing

**2.2**

In 23.73 microseconds of computation, the Halutian planning brain steering Icho Tolot's body came to the result that protecting the cape who could fire devastating bolts at Leviathan was a new priority, one that was strongly connected to the optimum survival rate of the human population of Boston.

Checking its options, the biological computer dismissed a direct intervention - Leviathan was already in the building holding the female with the crossbow, while the Halutian form was still enclosed by energy shields, and generally limited in its jumping ability, at least compared to the feat the Endbringer had just performed with his leap of up to 100 feet.

Using the tinkertech armband it had obtained from Myrddin was also eliminated from the list of alternatives, simply because the planning brain had - due to combat circumstances - never received any instructions on the device's use.

Finding out by trial and error would be as task of a few minutes at most, but time was of the essence in this case.

That left only one effective choice: verbal communication.

Luckily, the Halutian body was equipped with a respirational and vocal system that was up to the task, even against the howling of a massive storm and the sounds of crunching concrete Leviathan's destructive climb through the upper floors of the high rise produced.

After taking an especially deep breath, Icho Tolot's body performed an act that had burst or at least injured countless eardrums before - it simply used its voice.

"Leviathan targets the crossbow girl! Take her from the roof!" the Halutian bellowed, his shouted words so powerful that the capes who were near him, Legend among them, could not only hear him - very well indeed - but could even feel slight vibrations in the air, caused by Tolot's extreme bass.

The planning brain observed in satisfaction as the already happening evacuation of the rooftop accelerated even further, and two flyers who had been close to the young cape with the archaic weapon approached her simultaneously.

At first, she had stumbled backwards from the balustrade in shock when she heard Tolot's words, which had obviously been audible even at her position, 200 feet above the ground, but then she caught on quickly, and began to run towards her rescuers.

From one moment to the next, the energy fields around the Halutian flickered and died, given up as useless by the shielders from Myrddin's group, who had more pressing matters to attend to anyway.

Tolot's massive form began to push through the flooded street towards the high rise instantly, the planning brain intent on getting into position to engage the enemy once again.

In the meantime, the airspace around the building took on the look of a hornets nest that someone had poked with a stick, with capes darting in every direction, many of them carrying those that couldn't save themselves.

Legend and Alexandria - who had apparently recovered quickly from her collision with Leviathan's massive tail - joined the efforts of the other parahumans.

Racing forward, grabbing someone, and depositing them on other rooftops looked effortless for the two triumvirs, a huge contrast to many of the other flyers.

In an explosion of debris and the spray of his afterimage, Leviathan burst through the roof, his grotesquely deformed, ichor covered head snapping in one, his lethal tail in the other direction, eager to kill all who stood in his way.

He was greeted by a bombardment from several blasters who were hovering high above him and tried to cover the retreat, but the monster simply ignored their attacks, more interested in finding his elusive pray.

As far as the planning brain could tell from its position, the roof had been cleared just in the nick of time though, denying Leviathan the chance to strike the sniper-cape down.

It'd taken the two parahumans who'd approached her a few moments to coordinate with her and each other, but at the time Leviathan arrived on the scene, they were already in the air, speeding away from the roof in an awkward but steady formation.

As if catching their scent, the Endbringer tore towards the roof's rim in a swinging gait much less graceful than his movement over water, but still blindingly fast.

_**"Chance of Leviathan catching priority protectee within parameters of observed jump capabilities: 13%"**_, the planning brain calculated, but in the next second, its careful assessment was proven worthless.

Instead of lunging from the roof in pursuit, the Endbringer used the momentum he had gathered for something entirely new - his claws, closed into massive fists, hit the balustrade with enormous power, shattering it and flinging a dense cloud of debris away from the impact, like pellets fired from a shotgun.

Most of the improvised attack missed the trio of fleeing capes, who were more than 100 feet away, but one shrapnel hit the female cape's crossbow, throwing it from her grasp.

She reacted instinctively and tried to grasp her weapon, but it was already plunging towards the ground, and her flailing destabilized the whole flying ensemble.

Their airspeed dwindled rapidly and both flyers fought desperately to regain the balance they had before.

Deep down beneath them, the Halutian planning brain sprang into action.

Tolot's body rushed towards a wrecked car that had been thrown into the third floor facade of the high rise, and ripped the driver side door away with contemptuous ease, as if it was opening a tin can.

While its central eye kept the struggle high above in focus, the other two watched on as Tolot's powerful hands tore the whole driver's seat out of the vehicle in one piece.

On the rooftop, Leviathan was hit by an intense salvo of Legend's red and violet lasers from behind, and half a second later, an onrushing Alexandria struck her fist into the Endbringer's back with enough force to topple the monster from it's precarious position on the edge.

It looked as if every chance to hurt the crossbow-sniper had been abruptly taken from Leviathan, but as gravity pulled his hulking frame forward into the abyss, he revealed one last card to play.

His enormous right arm shot forward in a wide circular arc, and a huge piece of concrete that had been hidden inside, shot out of his hand.

Like a biological staff sling, the Endbringer's arm accelerated the projectile into a nearly straight ballistic curve towards the flying trio, who had just regained their equilibrium.

The cape on the right, a man wearing a lightly armored suit painted in all the colors of the rainbow, had been looking back towards Leviathan, saw the new attack, and in a split-second, with a truly heroic act, he twisted his body, and interposed himself between the onrushing block and its target.

He paid for his bravery dearly when the shot hit home, the visible denting of the plates over his chest suggesting severe injury.

Losing his grip on the now crossbowless crossbow-sniper, the stricken cape tumbled away in agony, leaving the one on the left, a short person, who might've been as young as the girl he carried, to the task of holding both him and his passenger afloat.

Judging by his terrible performance, his power had never been intended for supporting more than his own weight - he kept hold of the girl, but their trajectory lost any semblance of controlled flight, and turned into a barely decreased plunge towards the ground.

In reaction to this emergency, the planning brain performed a last microsecond scan of the situation, taking in all actors and their movements on the battlefield, then it catapulted itself upwards along the building's front face.

Moving like this forced it to restructure the Halutian frame once again, massively reducing the form's weight, and that in turn necessitated a transformation of the ordinary brain too, because a clump of super dense and exceedingly heavy metal couldn't exist inside a body otherwise made from meat, or at least not without very unfortunate results.

Thus, Taylor was once again thrown into a situation she was totally ignorant of, going from a state that could be compared to brain death to ultrahigh synaptic activity in less than a second.

"Ahhhhhhh!" she screamed internally, as their shared body rocketed up, absurdly holding a car seat in the iron grasp of their left upper hand.

Through their eyes, she saw the sky filled with capes, but her attention was swiftly pulled to the giant figure of Leviathan falling directly towards them.

"Are you insane! We can't hit Leviathan like this!" Taylor berated Icho Tolot, fear for her at the moment quite vulnerable brain surging through her, but the Halutian being ignored her, and simply kept calculating angles and speeds.

They reached the apex of their jump, 60 feet above ground, and the planning brain rammed both right fists into the facade of the building, grasping the internal steel girder it had aimed for.

While Taylor was uselessly protesting and metaphorically shaking in her boots, the planning brain executed the second part of their movement.

Their lower body was reeled inside the building, secured a strong stance, and pushed away again with the might of Halutian muscles, the whole sequence completed with perfect body control and without so much as a slip or fumbling in less than two seconds.

As they were shooting out- and upwards, Taylor registered their eyes focussing on a pair of capes who were dropping like a stone.

When Tolot held out the car seat in front of them with the upholstery facing up, Taylor was strongly reminded of a baseball outfielder lunging to catch the ball with his glove, and she finally understood what was happening.

Perfectly timed, as Taylor was coming to expect from Tolot, they intercepted the pair of falling capes, and with a heavy impact, the slender body of a young woman slammed into the car seat, while the cape who had tried - and spectacularly failed - to hold her in the air, grazed by and disappeared below.

The parahuman they'd caught was screaming incoherently, and flailed her arms and legs around, obviously not understanding that she'd been saved from pancaking on the floodwaters.

Her erratic movements forced their body to press her into the seat with the other upper, or "action arm", as the pair of extremities was known in Halutian physiology.

Their flight path dipped at a high angle after their momentum had spent itself, and they dropped towards the roof of a lower building, accelerated by gravity.

Tolot pulled the car seat towards their chest and curled up around it and the female cape in a protective shell, then Taylor felt her thoughts slow down once again as parts of her brain underwent the change, one she had anticipated this time.

The Halutian body smashed into the platform roof like a bullet tearing through a paper target, and even the floors below couldn't break their fall.

They only came to a halt in the first flooded story, and Tolot unfolded quickly in order to get their protectee over the water's surface.

The young cape hung in the seat like a drenched and broken rag doll, scantly conscious and bleeding from her mouth.

Her wide eyes, barely visible through the visor covering them, were bloodshot and glassy, probably the first signs of a concussion.

There would be other injuries too after this kind of fall and impact - the girl had been as secure as possible given the circumstances, but a car seat and Tolot's steely body were no adequate replacement for what had really been needed here - a fire brigades's jumping pillow.

As soon as Taylor's ability to think returned fully, her heart went out to the young cape, pity and concern climaxing all other considerations and emotions.

"Get us out of here, we must bring this girl to a healer!" she demanded.

_**"Positive,"**_ was Tolot's only reply before they started to move in the surprisingly graceful, rapid fluidity seemingly typical for Halutians while they were in a mostly untransformed state.

First, they went up to the next floor to get out of the water, then they shot down a corridor until they reached a window that gave them a view of the outside.

About 170 to 180 feet away, Leviathan had hit the ground, still ready to fight of course, and was currently engaging against Alexandria and a massive cape Taylor identified as New Wave's Manpower, with Legend and a few other blasters backing them up.

As they stood there and stared at the scene, the wounded girl in their arms steered.

"My crossbow, need by crossbow..." she muttered in a thin voice that would've been unintelligible to everyone without Tolot's excellent hearing.

_**"You will get it back, my little one,"**_ Tolot reassured her in a soft, only slightly rumbling tone that stood in fundamental contrast to his horrific exterior.

"You know, this mothering act is going to creep her out more than it's helping." Taylor informed her mindscape's second inmate cattishly, more than a bit peeved that the Halutian had never bothered with such a treatment when dealing with her.

Ignoring her remark, Tolot continued to placate the injured cape, producing sounds that came close to cooing, if the soft rhythmical sounds he uttered could ever fittingly be described by that word, given that they were coming from a killing machine of his proportions.

The young cape in their arms reacted positively to Tolot's verbal comfort, and in moments, she gathered herself enough to open an emergency channel on her radio.

"Thisisssh Flechet, 'm wounded and need 'gent pickup," she slurred with a heavy tongue.

"Acknowledged, Flechette, a teleporter will be dispatched to your position ASAP." the crisp voice of the operator answered her a second later, audible to Tolot's fine senses even from inside the girl's mask.

Taylor felt her worry lift slightly at that, but as she stared out at Leviathan, who had just flung Manpower into a wall with lethal force, she wondered if the transport would even arrive in time for the young girl in their arms, who was apparently known as "Flechette".

Taylor had never heard that name before today, but that was probably true for most capes in the fight and regardless, the fact that Tolot couldn't effectively fight while they had to care for the injured cape was much more pressing.

"While we wait, you could give me a rundown of what happened when we attacked." Taylor requested, mostly to distract herself from her fears.

_**"Icho Tolot's ramming maneuver and subsequent attack went well initially, but the enemy is an even harder target than your memories indicated. Destroying his eyes was ineffectual as well." **_

She wanted to ask how their rescue of Flechette had started, but Leviathan interrupted her train of thought by hammering Alexandria into the foaming water with a head butt, before darting away from the battle … towards their position.

"Oh fuck!" Flechette mumbled as she saw the monster close in, and Taylor could only agree.

The Halutian on the other hand wasted no time on useless curses, but reacted by simply tearing away from their observation spot on all four running limbs, directed only by the need to keep as much distance between them and the Endbringer as possible.

They crashed through a window, with the wounded cape pressed to their chest, and the bottom side of the car seat protecting her back from the shards and splinters exploding in all direction.

While they were in midair, Taylor discovered that Tolot had aimed for a window in the next building over, and concluded that the being driving their body wanted to keep away from the floodwaters.

_**"Correct, denying the enemy his most useful advantage is crucial to protect Flechette." **_

They slammed through the glass pane and into the next building, and Tolot deployed his central eye once again on its stalk, raising it high enough that they could use it for getting a view of what was happening behind them.

Leviathan had closed in on them, but his movements seemed to be much more unsteady than before, his speed was also lower.  
_**  
"The water level is sinking around him." **_Tolot observed clinically, and indeed, when they reached the end of the building they were currently traversing, they spotted a brightly glowing Eidolon above them in the sky.

An enormous tornado of water and spray was rotating below the third Triumvir, connecting him with the approaching figure of Leviathan, who had started to look reluctant and unsettled for the first time since the battle had started.

From behind, Legend and the blasters with him resumed their attacks on the Endbringer, destabilizing his stance further, and Alexandria was gearing up for a new attack as well, this time from behind and above.

_**"Eidolon is sucking away the water Leviathan is standing on, possibly the afterimage too."**_ Tolot said analytically.

"Yeah, and it's working!" Taylor shouted, making up for the Halutian's coolness with her own enthusiasm.

They crashed through the next window, and suddenly, a heavily armored figure appeared a dozen yards in front of them, giving Tolot just enough time to slow down before he trampled the teleporter underfoot.

They stretched out the car seat containing Flechette towards him, but the transport-cape ignored the gesture, and in the next moment, they found themselves on a paved, water free parking lot that belonged to a massive and still undamaged hospital.

"Leave the arrival zone!" their teleporter demanded curtly, and gestured imperiously to the buildings entrance area, where a frenzied triage effort was underway.

_**"It seems following orders in indicated."**_ Tolot said, and their massive form moved forward, towering above everyone around.

It was a chaotic scene, dominated by the pain filled cries and shouts of the wounded and the hasty chatter of the medical personal attending them.

Many of the stretchers used to hold the injured were stained with blood or other bodily fluids Taylor didn't want to think about.

As they searched for Panacea or one of the very few other healers Taylor could remember, Flechette still in their arms, they spotted a tall figure in powerarmor leaving the hospital, carrying a sturdy tinkertech halberd over his shoulder.  
**2.3 **

"That's Armsmaster." Taylor whispered inside their mind, her inner voice tinted by the long held awe she had for the Protectorate hero, and forgetting that Tolot had access to her very memories.

The tall and muscular cape, leader of the Brockton Bay Protectorate, and one of the most famous tinkers in the whole country, passed the throng of civilians and hospital staff towards them, flowing through small and short lived gaps without jolting anyone.

_**"Interesting,"**_ Tolot commented, _**"his reaction time is vastly superior to the average human and the armor's design features indicate heavy miniaturization on a scale comparabale to Siganese work..."**_

Taylor didn't listen to the boring technical analysis the Halutian was going on about though - to her, Armsmaster was the model of a hero, even more so than Myrddin, maybe because she had seen him on their local TV station, in countless Brockton Bay settings she'd been to herself, like the Boardwalk or the levitating Protectorate HQ in the harbor.

She remembered a day not that long ago, when she'd spend all of her allowance money on a set of Armsmaster themed underwear, an impulsive act Emma had mercilessly teased her about at their last slumber party.

If she could've done so in her current form, she would've blushed all over again, just as she'd done then.

With a lot of effort, she pushed the memory away.

They couldn't move through the crowd as elegantly as Armsmaster, due to the enormous breadth of their form, but keeping him in sight and finally blocking his way was easy enough.

He stopped only a few paces in front of them, dwarfed by their body even in his seven feet tall bulky suite of powerarmor.

People began to flow around them, and in seconds, they had a small island of calm for themselves inside the stream of hurrying humanity.

_**"Greetings, Armsmaster!"**_ Tolot rumbled, not very loudly for a Halutian, but still with enough volume to make many people who hadn't seen their approach turn around and gape at them with shocked expressions.

Taylor for her part wasn't thinking about the impression their hulking, dark and powerful frame would have on any onlookers.

She was jumping up and down in their mindscape, excited despite all that had happened to her to actually speak with Armsmaster.

The hero didn't reply at once, but stood stiffly in his place while he eyed their body openly.

His lips pressed together into a thin, disapproving line when he spotted Flechette in their arms, and suddenly, Taylor felt quite deflated, before even a word had been uttered by her favorite parahuman.

"You must be Icho Tolot, the supertough mons..., eh brute, who somehow managed to fool Dragon's latest generation of nanosensors into declaring himself dead." Armsmaster said after what seemed like a long time to Taylor, his tone clipped and flat, very different from the resonant rich voice she remembered from countless press conferees.

_**"Icho Tolot had no intentions to fool anyone, sir."**_ the Halutian corrected him politely.

"And still you did so, embarrassing the best tinker in the world, and now you are hindering me in performing my pressing duties, while at the same time depriving a Ward of the medical care she desperately needs." Armsmaster shot back in irritation, and pointed at the semiconscious Flechette in what could be only described as a gesture of condemnation.

_**"Icho Tolot begs you pardon,"**_ the Halutian said humbly, _**"but he judged it imperative to meet you as soon as you were spotted. Icho Tolot is in urgent need of a melee weapon, and knows that you always carry a duplicate of your halberd into Endbringer battles." **_

With quickly growing trepidation, Taylor saw Armsmaster's jaw muscles bulge as he clenched his mouth shut.

This was not going well.

_**"Might Icho Tolot borrow your reserve halberd for the purpose of bringing the fight to Leviathan?"**_ the planning brain completed their request, but Taylor already knew that they'd botched it by what she could see of the cape's expression.

"You don't only look like a killing machine, but you are a brazen individual too." Armsmaster pressed out angrily.

Before they could reply, he lifted the halberd from his shoulder in a swift movement, and brought it into what Tolot identified as a _**"Lower Outside Guard"**_ position, with the blade close to the ground on the left side of the hero, pointing towards them, and ready to strike.

The deserted area around them grew instantly, and people began to mutter in fear and irritation about the "idiotic posturing" of the two capes in their midst.

_**"Icho Tolot is not interested in fighting you, only in acquiring a weapon."**_ the Halutian tried to placate the hero.

"I don't know you from the Siberian, you could be a villain who's only in this fight to get his hands on my technology! It would violate at least six different PRT regulations to give you my weapon." Armsmaster spat in heated indignation.

"Now, get Flechette to a healer and move out of my way," he went on, "or I will interpret your behavior as a violation of the Endbringer truce!"

The planning brain conducted one of its high-speed calculations, and reached the conclusion that actually fighting Armsmaster to take his duplicate halberd would be counterproductive in the short as well as in the long run.

They stepped aside, and the hero walked past, keeping them in view for the whole time, with his weapon at the ready.

"That went terrible! You just antagonized the Protectorate leader of the city I live in!" Taylor wailed at Tolot as soon as Armsmaster had disappeared in the still downpouring rain.

She felt as if someone had just ripped her heart out, only to trample on it with malicious glee.

_**"His posture and inflection indicated that he was irritated even before Icho Tolot addressed him."**_ the Halutian countered while they were already moving again, in search for a healer.

"Yeah, but that doesn't change the fact that we didn't get the weapon we need, and also made an enemy out of _Armsmaster_!" Taylor ranted, stricken much more by her not-so-secret schoolgirl crush's coarse behavior than by their failure to convince him to hand over his reserve halberd.

They parted the masses of people around them like a battleship driving through a flotilla of sailing boats, and entered the hospital seconds later without further incidents.

The inside was much more organized than the triage area, with the tried and tested duties and procedures holding up to the strain they were under.

_**"Could you help Icho Tolot, please?"**_ they asked the obviously stressed middle aged woman at the reception, who looked up at them with wide, frightened eyes, as if they were about to eat her for dinner.

She only managed to nod once, her pupils focused on their forms' rows of long and very sharp teeth.

_**"The Ward Flechette needs urgent healing in order to rejoin the fight - where is Panacea?" **_

Without taking her focus from their mouth, the woman pointed towards their left.

"Just down that corridor and through the third door to the left."

They thanked her in the least threatening grumble their body could produce, and marched off quickly to find the best healer of the continent, if not the world. **2.4 **

Bent over to fit through the human sized door, which was adorned with the prosaic words "Staff Cantina", the body of Icho Tolot entered the large room the hospital's frightened receptionist had pointed them to.

More than three dozen capes were spread out on the linoleum floor in two long rows of stretchers, most of them unconscious, but others in such agony that their screaming and crying filled the air with a cacophony of misery.

A few nurses and doctors were around, taking measurements and supplying the injured with infusions, but they had the appearance and demeanor of helpers, constantly turning towards and calling questions to one small person in their midst.

It was Panacea - Taylor recognized her immediately, of course.

She was dressed in her famous costume, a hooded white robe which had massive red crosses on the front and the back alike.

The lower half of her face was hidden behind a scarf, despite the fact that her identity as Amy Dalon was well known to the public, due to the failed "unmasking" philosophy of the "New Wave" team.

Panacea was kneeling beside the newest of Leviathan's cape victims, one who had been placed only twenty feet from the entrance, because the available space in the room was nearly exhausted already.

The healers slender right hand was touching the wounded cape's cheek above the American flag masking her, getting the skin contact she needed for her power to work.

"Oh no, that's Miss Militia!" Taylor shouted inside their mindscape, filled by horrified surprise that the Brockton Bay heroine, who was beloved by everyone in the city, from little girls to militant feminists, had been hurt enough to need Panacea to heal her.

_**"This explains Armsmaster's presence here, as well as his negative emotional state - probability 84 percent."**_ Tolot said with his usual passionless certainty.

"Yeah, looks like we got a bad break there." Taylor agreed, torn between sympathy for Miss Militia and relieve that her bitter disappointment at the halberd wielding hero's hostile behavior was already fading in face of this new revelation.

"We have to pay more attention to those transmissions, if we'd done so we could've started on the right foot with Armsmaster."

Neither she nor Tolot had listened closely to the stream of "down" and "deceased" announcements coming from Dragon's armband, mostly because they were concentrating on the fight and didn't know the mentioned names anyway, but also, in Tolot's case, because the information _**"lacked tactical value". **_

As far as Taylor could tell from the blindingly fast calculations she felt through their mental connection, the Halutian considered the rolling casualty list to be a _**"highly inefficient"**_ method of battlefield communication, because everyone mentioned in the transmissions was treated following the same _**"simplistic categories"**_, despite the fact that the effects of their powers on Leviathan and their combat experience varied greatly.

"You will surely invent a new system as soon as the fight is over, if it's that _easy_, right?" Taylor asked ironically, offended that Tolot would disparage Dragon and her tinkertech so casually.

_**"Priority on improving procedure in question: low. A detailed list of short- and midterm goals with higher importance is available." **_

"Arrghhh! Let's just concentrate on the present, ok?"

While their inner "talk" took place with the speed of thought, their hulking Halutian frame was already approaching Panacea with quick strides of their massive legs, causing noticeable vibrations of the floor and dull *Thump! Thump!* sounds in the air.

Without warning, a figure that had been hidden behind a hospital curtain in the far corner of the canteen entered their field of view, and shot towards them through the air, the enormous speed of her passage ruffling hair and clothes of wounded and doctor's alike.

The new arrival, a statuesque blonde girl, came to a stop right in front of them, standing upright in the air with her hands on her hips, and blocking their way with a rather haughty expression on her pretty features.

"That's Glory Girl ... Panacea's ... wonderful sister." Taylor stuttered, overwhelmed by a wave of awe that was even stronger than what she had felt when meeting Armsmaster.

_**"Attention: mind altering influence detected. Status of ordinary brain: already decoupled from body control."**_ Tolot informed her.

Taylor ignored him in favor of taking in the appearance of her new favorite parahuman.

The teenager wore a white one-piece dress that came to mid-thigh, and an archetypical cape flowing down her back, with high boots and a golden tiara in her shining hair rounding off the picture of a stereotypical 50s super heroine.

"Put the wounded down there -" Glory Girl demanded in a superior tone before they could even introduce themselves, and pointed to an empty stretcher on the floor "and kindly leave the way you came. It's already a madhouse in here without you scaring everyone and damaging the floor!"

Tolot bowed forward to check the flooring, and found to Taylor's dismay that they'd left deep dents in the linoleum.

They reminded Taylor of the fossilized dinosaur tracks she'd seen only three days ago, when her youth camp group had visited the Amherst College museum of natural history.

Ashamed of their brontosaurian clumsiness, Taylor felt the strong urge to follow Glory Girl's command, but the Halutian that was sharing her body overruled her without one iota of compassion.

_**"The Ward Flechette is needed for successfully conducting the battle, her power is a highly potent weapon against Leviathan."**_ Tolot explained rumblingly, and took another step in the direction of Panacea.

"I really don't care who she is, I'm here to keep people like you off my sister's back, and that's what I'm gonna do, if you like it or not." the heroine also known under her real name of "Victoria Dalon" declared steadfastly, not backing down an inch, despite the fact that the Halutian form towered over her, even while she was in flight.

_**"Flechette's projectiles are able to penetrate the whole of Leviathan's body. Her injuries are a result of the Endbringer's retaliatory attack after she shot a bolt through his head." **_

"That's quite impressive, I'm sure, but Panacea will deal with all the wounded in her own time and on her own terms!" Glory Girl snarled, making Taylor wish that she could just turn and run away.

The New Wave cape took a more threatening posture, balling her hands to fists and raising them to chest height, obviously ready to rush the Halutian body at a moments notice.

All of that didn't deter Icho Tolot, of course.

_**"It's imperative that Flechette returns to the fight without delay. A cost-benefit equation between her power and that of Miss Militia indicates a utility differentiation of more than 850 percent in Flechette's favor." **_

"Now listen carefully, you monster!" Glory Girl screamed angrily, and closed in until she was less than a foot away from their face.

"If you think for a second that my sister gives a damn about your so called "equation", than you better..."

"Stop this, Victoria!" a pleading voice interrupted the tirade.

It was Panacea, who had stood up beside Miss Militia's litter, and was staring at them, her eyes giving the impression of equal amounts of exhaustion and wariness.

"But Ames, didn't you hear what this cold hearted bastard said?" Victoria Dalon whined indignantly.

"I've stabilized Miss Militia, I can regrow her arm after I take a look at this girl." Panacea said firmly, coming towards them with swift steps that couldn't fully hide the fatigue she was feeling.

_**"Greetings, Panacea. This form's name is Icho Tolot."**_ the Halutian introduced them politley, and Taylor's focus shifted from the reluctantly retreating Glory Girl to her more diminutive sister.

Panacea ignored Tolot's words, and concentrated on the by now fully unconscious Ward they were holding in their arms.

She touched the fingers of Flechette's right hand and closed her eyes, intently watched by the three red ones of the Halutian body.

_**"Panacea's healing ability is very interesting to Icho Tolot - depending on its function and versatility, it could be used for many purposes, including upgrading the average human physique to Oxtornian levels of power and endurance." **_Tolot said internally, while they stared at the quickly improving hue of Flechette's visible skin.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Taylor replied. "If Panacea could change normal people to whatever "Oxtornian levels" are, she would do so all the time. She's a great healer, but still limited - I once heard that she can't even heal brain injuries."

_**"The fact that Flechette - who possesses the only power Icho Tolot has observed actually hurting the enemy - was put on the battlefield without any sort of armor to protect her, as well as the dysfunctional communication system in use, casts doubt on the competence of parahumans and their organizations to use their power to maximum effect. There may be other factors, social or political, in play: insufficient data." **_

It took only a minute before Panacea opened her eyes again and looked up into their face.

"She has a concussion I can't do anything about, but her broken ribs, damaged vertebrae and the light internal bleeding in her right lung have been dealt with, as well as several extensive hematoma. You should wake her up in five minutes, when all effects of my healing have settled, and keep her awake after that."

_**"Thank you, Panacea. Icho Tolot hopes to speak with you again." **_

The young cape stared at them for a moment, her brow creased in angry disapproval.

"Don't think that I share your utilitarian stance regarding the worth of wounded people just because I helped Flechette." she told them frostily, and turned around sharply, her robe billowing around her.

The quick movement proved to be too much for the fatigued girl's balance though, and she stumbled and fell with a shriek of surprise and fear.

Icho Tolot shot forward with lightning speed, and grabbed the healer around her torso, caught her fall with ease and put her down on her feet again.

Obviously unsettled from the shock of falling and her tiredness, the healer gripped Tolot's arm with both hands to steady herself.

Panacea froze in her position, and her eyes went wide. 


	6. Emotional Blackmail

**2.5 **

_**  
"Alarm! Body integrity breached! 100% of body mass affected by unknown influence! Loss of control imminent!"**_ Tolot's voice reverberated through their shared mindscape.

Taylor could actually perceive what he was talking about, a sharp and persistent "tingling", for want of a better word, was suddenly overlaying all her perceptions. It was a strange sensation, not emanating from their normal senses, but from some sort of hypersensitive coenaesthesis she hadn't even known they had before.

It felt like every cell in their body was affected by something, worse, it was as if someone was looking into their head with a search light, while holding a scalpel, ready to cut and prod everywhere at once.

It reminded her of the reshuffling and modifications Tolot had effected in her brain after the accident, and for once, she understood very well where the Halutian's alarm came from.

She fixed her look at Panacea, whose grip on their body's enormous arm had only intensified, and an inspiration struck her.

"This may be unatten..." she began to tell the Halutian, but her intuition that Panacea couldn't hold her power back if she was forced to touch someone, came too late.

_**"Countermeasures initiated." **_

From one second to the next, their body transformed itself.

Every muscle, the mighty bones forming their skeleton, and even the contents of their stomach, became harder than the best steel ever forged on Earth Bet, until a few microseconds later, the neurons of their two brains underwent the same process.

Taylor lost her awareness, and the planning brain was equally effected, cut off from what "consciousness" a biological computer of it's sophistication could lay claim to.

For an indeterminable span of eternity, both of their minds remained shut down, effectively wiped from existence - it was a "temporary death" with profound philosophical implications, but Taylor wouldn't realize that for some time to come.

When her brain started to work again, in the abrupt fashion she was learning to hate, their body was already moving backwards, away from Panacea, who had slid to the ground when their frame had withdrawn its supporting arm, and was now sprawled on the floor with an utterly shocked expression, eyes wide as saucers and chalk white beneath her scarf-cum-half-mask.

In a swift, fluid move that once again showed their perfect body control, they laid the still unconscious Flechette down on an empty stretcher in order to get her out of the danger of follow-up assaults on them.

Their steps left crushed linoleum under their form's feet - on "reawakening", the planning brain had shifted the Halutian body into the optimized battlefield mode they'd used against Leviathan, hardened enough on the outside to withstand every conceivable conventional threat, but still mobile and able to go on the offensive when needed.

_**"Attack averted - no abnormal changes to Halutian physique discovered. Motive for Panacea's actions: unclear. Processing gathered data." **_

"You don't even know that this was on purpose!" Taylor exclaimed, outraged that the Halutian would entertain the thought that the healer had nefarious intentions.

Sure, it had been an unsettling feeling to be vulnerable into every last recess of their mighty body, but by the course of events, it was more than clear to her that Panacea hadn't intended any harm.

There might've been a productive discussion on that topic between the two inhabitant's of their mindscape, but another actor chose that moment, only seconds after they had started to move, to interfere.

The Halutian's eyes snapped from Panacea to the onrushing figure, and Taylor was once again assaulted by a wave of awe, this time underscored by a terrible feeling of dread and helplessness.

_**"Attention: mind altering influence detected. Status of ordinary brain: already decoupled from body control."**_ Tolot informed an unheeding Taylor in exactly the same tone and words used once before, following procedure like any well programmed machine, even biological ones, should.

There was no answer from Taylor, who was much too terrified to do any mental communication besides whimpering to herself.

A split-second later, Glory Girl smashed into the Halutian frame with the power of a steam hammer, her clenched fist leading the way and hitting what would've been called the right temple on a human's head.

To her detriment, the young New Wave superheroine had calculated her attack on the confident assumption that anyone she tackled with her might would simply give way.

Thirty tons of Halutian begged to differ though, and all the kinetic energy she had accumulated only served to throw the blonde girl's whole body against Tolot's rigid form with tremendous force.

She ricocheted back and fell to the floor, where she lay still, winded and clearly shocked by the ineffectiveness of her charge.

_**"Icho Tolot is not pleased, Glory Girl,"**_ their body announced, taking a menacing step towards her that made splinters of linoleum fly in every direction, while the astonished heroine stared up at them, her normally pretty features contorted into a mixture of anger and fear .

Panacea ran to her sister's side and put her own small and vulnerable body between the two brutes, her own shock and exhaustion forgotten in the face of the insane escalation happening inside her infirmary full of wounded and helpless capes.

"Stop it! Stop it, both of you!" she screamed loudly, pushing down on Glory Girl, who was already trying to lift up once again.

_**"If Glory Girl abandons her unprovoked attack, Icho Tolot shall refrain from disabling her." **_

"You damned asshole threw my sister to the ground like she was garbage! She could've hit her head, or worse!" Glory Girl accused them fierily, while wriggling out of Panacea's grip and righting herself, until she was hovering before them, protecting the healer with her own invulnerable form.

_**"Icho Tolot submits that Panacea used her power against this body without permission." **_

"I'm really sorry, Mr. Icho Tolot, sir - this is all a terrible misunderstanding!" Panacea pleaded, one of her hands held up with the flat of her palm towards them in a placating gesture, while the other swept up Glory Girl's back, only to come to a rest on the naked skin of her neck.

Some of the fight seemed to seep out of the blonde girl, and the planning brain noticed with keen interest how the visible change of attitude corresponded with Panacea's touch.

_**"Icho Tolot is prepared to accept your apology and forget this breach of the Endbringer truce ever happened-"**_ the healer's face brightened at their words, and Glory Girl actually slumped forward, as if sudden fatigue had overtaken her, Panacea's hand still on her neck, but they both stiffened again when they heard the second part of the sentence, _**"- on the condition that you come with this form and have a short discussion of your powers. Alone." **_

"That's not happening!" Glory Girl blustered, but Panacea pulled her away, and a furious whispered debate ensured, which ended half a minute later with the healer coming back towards them, trepidation visible on her face and in her movements, while her sister stayed back reluctantly, keeping a vigilant watch on them.

_**"There is no reason to be afraid, Icho Tolot just wants a quick word,"**_ the Halutian's deep bass grumbled while the starkly contrasting pair of giant brute and mousy teenaged healer walked towards the room's corner that was furthest away from prying ears.

Panacea didn't reply to Tolot's words, but when they reached their destination and faced away from Glory Girl, Taylor reappeared from the nook of their mindscape she had been hidden in.

"What do you want from her?" she asked Tolot snappishly, piqued that she was so easily frightened by the aura of a heroine, and concerned about the intentions of the ruthless alien presence in her head towards the healer.

The Halutian simply ignored Taylor once again, and she was left to tease the answer out of what she could tell from their mental connection - after taking in the furious brain activity going on beyond their hub, she was sure that Tolot was preparing something complicated, at least for him.

Their form bowed towards Panacea until their heads were only a few inches apart, a movement that made the New Wave cape manifestly uncomfortable.

Taylor felt how their lips were formed into a tightly closed line with only a small hole for the passage of air, then Tolot started to actually _whisper_, speaking to Panacea in such a low volume that no one else in the room who wasn't in possession of super-hearing would catch a word he said.

_**"After you touched this form's skin, Icho Tolot's power showed him that your claim to be unable to heal brains is a lie." **_

"What?" Taylor exclaimed inside their mindscape, aghast at the implications of Tolot's words.

_**"Analysis of the effects of Panacea's power indicate this with a likelihood of 76%. High enough to risk a bluff in order to get Flechette fully healed for battle."**_ the Halutian answered her question silently.

Panacea, for her part, snapped back from them as if they'd thrown acid into her face instead of words, and two of their eyes watched as intense emotions were displayed on her features, ranging from fear to rage, while their third eye observed Glory Girl taking off towards them, only to abort her flight when she saw that her sister was unhurt, and signaling for her to stay away.

After a tense silence, Panacea rallied visibly, and pushed back with a surprise of her own.

"I'm not conforming your accusations - they are false, of course! - but if you were to make them public, I might find it necessary to give up on my medical confidentiality and inform the PRT about the very strange presence of two brains in your head."

She paused, as if waiting for a reaction, but when Tolot didn't even blink an eye, she resumed her verbal attack, somewhat less confident in her manner.

"One of the brains is dominating the other through a dense knot of very newly grown synaptic tissue. To me, from the admittedly short glimpse I caught before whatever you did with your power to block me happened, it looks suspiciously like some biological master power at work in your body. I'm sure the PRT would demand an explanation and examination to prove your innocence of any crimes if I told them..."

The planning brain hadn't interrupted the young healer in her not very subtle attempt at blackmail, but as soon as she stopped her speech, it resumed its battle of wits with a new salvo.

It was a battle, Taylor realized with a sinking feeling, for dominance over the young woman and the use of her power.

_**"Reacting to Icho Tolot's non-judgmental statement of fact with a clumsy effort to extort this body's silence shows only that you feel guilty. Analysis of facial expression and gesture confirms this conclusion. Probability that your power heals brains stands at 93.67 percent." **_

The healer shook her head in denial, but her hands were trembling and her eyes looked misty, as if she might start crying at a moment's notice.

Taylor felt Tolot sifting through all her memories of Panacea and New Wave at a dizzyingly high speed, and with such intensity that the search became nearly painful, and much more blunt than his normal activities.

It seemed to her that managing complex social interactions was far more taxing for the Halutian than going up against an Endbringer, but that impression might've been biased by the fact that she couldn't remember the most furious seconds of the engagement.

_**"Icho Tolot wonders what all the families of people who you falsely claimed you couldn't save would have to say to this information? Or how Glory Girl would react if she were to learn that you manipulated her emotional state just minutes ago, in order to defuse her aggressive mood?" **_

Tolot's questions were hitting Panacea harder than any blows to the body could. She bent forward and clasped herself tightly with her harms, while tears began to leak from the corners of her eyes.

Taylor felt torn between anger at Tolot for hurting the fragile girl in front of them with his charges, and righteous resentment that the healer would simply let people die for some unknown reason.

She didn't doubt the Halutian's claims , as she might've done in any other situation, because she had felt the tingling effect of Panacea's power herself - it had been everywhere in their body, especially fierce in their brains.

What if her mom had survived her car crash long enough to get to the hospital, Taylor asked herself.

If she had brain damage, and Panacea had been there - would the healer have denied her mother any help?

_**"Icho Tolot doesn't know why you don't heal brains, despite the fact that you could do it as easily as closing a papercut. You may have reasons you deem important enough to fail in your duty to render assistance to injured people, you may even be correct."**_ the Halutian whispered sympathetically, and Taylor was once again surprised by the amount of caring and human emotion the mysterious being could simulate when needed, as it had done before with the wounded Flechette.

_**"But this is an Endbringer fight, Panacea."**_ Tolot went on, his tone becoming more frosty and demanding.

_**"The whole population of Boston is at stake, and their lives outweigh any rationale you might have - unless your healing of brains somehow kills the recipients later, of course?" **_

Panacea kept crying silently, and only her repeated hand-signals towards her sister kept Glory Girl in her place, where she flew up and down agitatedly, not understanding why her obviously distressed sister wouldn't want her at her side.

It took nearly a minute before the healer had collected herself enough to give any coherent reply to Tolot's last question, and when it came, it was defiant and uncaring of giving away the truth.

"You don't understand at all!" she shouted, louder than advisable, even with their distance to the other people in the room.

Realizing the danger, she went on much softer, but her explanation was still furious, spat out in rapid fire, like water being pressed through a finally opened dam after weeks of torrential rains.

"It's not as if I like it to see people with brain damage die and suffer! But once I start healing brains, there is no barrier between my power and the substrate from which personalities arise. Do you get it now? It's hard enough to regrow limbs or inner organs as close to the way they were as possible, but once fragile brain cells and synapses are damaged or destroyed, my power has to fill the gaps they left with new ones, grown by me and filled with some sort of information created by my power. The more damage there is, the more I would change the character of the people! They would stop being themselves and become my own creation!"

She stopped, out of breath and with a slight blush on her still pale cheeks.

It was obvious that she had spent a lot of time thinking on the topic and rationalizing her own behavior.  
_**  
"This is an interesting philosophical and practical problem to be discussed at length later. Immediately though, Icho Tolot needs you to heal Flechette's brain injury, which isn't severe. If your work should result in changes to her personality, they would be minuscule." **_

"Maybe, yes," Panacea agreed haltingly, while wiping her eyes with the sleeves of her costume.

"But once I start doing brains, how can I stop again? Who will make sure that I don't start manipulating people to be more to my liking? What will people say if all this comes out?"

_**"Slippery slope arguments are often fallacious - should your psychological constitution actually prove to be an exception, and warrant the expectation that you will behave as feared, technological safeguards could be implemented." **_

Panacea stared at them as if they were crazy, with her mouth open, and Taylor felt sure that this was the first time anyone had ever proposed a solution to her dilemma.

_**"Probably because Icho Tolot is the first person to confront her about her lie concerning the healing of brains," **_the Halutian stated, the contrast between his unfeeling inner voice and his earlier masquerade for Panacea still jarring to Taylor.

"And you claim to be able to do so?" Panacea asked, disbelief, anger and a very slight sliver of hope battling for prevalence on the visible parts of her face.

_**"Yes. Icho Tolot is in possession of the required knowledge, a device for your use could be ready in less than six weeks, given that the required supplies are available."  
**_  
Tolot made a heavy pause, as if to give Panacea time to take in the opportunity they offered her.

When about 30 seconds had passed in silence, the Halutian continued, his voice as loud and hard as possible while still whispering:  
_**  
"Before Icho Tolot does anything for you though, you need to heal Flechette. Now." **_

As if to underscore his words, the armband supplied by Dragon spoke up once again:

"Triumvirate has lost contact to Leviathan, CD 4."

**2.6 **

Panacea glared at them, her still wet eyes expressing anger and despair in equal measures, and Taylor felt how her own condemnation of the healer's "no brains" policy began to shrink unto itself, melted away by her sympathy with the girl's plight.

Would she have healed someone in the sure knowledge that the process itself would leave them a changed person?

Taylor shuddered at the thought of being in Panaceas's shoes, of healing her mother after the crash, only to find out that she didn't love her anymore because of what Taylor's power did to her.

It was a horrifying prospect, one she wished on nobody.

"I'll heal Flechette's concussion, but only under the condition that you really provide me with the technology you promised." Panacea finally agreed with their demands, her jaw clenched as if she had to force down a barrage of much more unfriendly words.

"If you can't deliver that device in two months," she continued, visibly bracing herself "I will come out to my family and the PRT, tell them what I can really do, and I will describe you as what you are - a blackmailer who broke an Endbringer truce!"

She hissed the last words, and Taylor felt sure that Panacea's threat wasn't idle, that she had meant what she said.

_**"Acceptable. But if this is a business deal to you, not a deed you perform because it is the only morally correct way of action, Icho Tolot has another request to balance the scales." **_

The Halutian's words had a harsh effect on the healer, she looked stricken for a split second, but she recovered quickly, and her features became even more fierce.

Taylor suspected that the girl was channeling her mom at that moment, who was not only known as Brandish, the New Wave superheorine, but also as Carol Dalon, a very successful and rather ruthless lawyer and negotiator.

"Let's hear it then." Panacea demanded, her tone colder than she'd managed in the entire previous conversation.

_**"Icho Tolot has calculated a high chance that your power is able to perform much more than acts of healing. You admitted as much when you described how it works on human brains. If Flechette is to join this form in close quarters battle against Leviathan, she needs to be eminently more durable - a change you should deliver simultaneously with the healing of her brain." **_

Panaceas's cool facade dropped, and her eyes literally bulged out, staring at their body like they had sprouted a second head.

"You really mean this?! I would never do such a thing without Flechette's express permission! And she's a Ward, she would be duty bound to report it after the fight. No! I'm not going to fiddle with her body as if she were a lab rat!"

The healer stopped her tirade for a moment, conscious of the fact that her agitation had driven her to an unsafe loudness once again.

She resumed with a much lower volume:

"Flechette's body hasn't enough energy reserves left, and her disposable body mass is too low to do anything with it, anyway. It would kill her!"

Panacea sounded genuinely concerned now, obviously very protective of her patient.

_**"Suboptimal. Icho Tolot will have to acquire means of protection for Flechette on the battlefield..." **_

The Halutian discontinued his sentence, a first in their acquaintance up to now, and Taylor could feel the amount of calculations running on the other side of the hub ramp up sharply in response to this new problem.

_**"Proceed with the healing."**_ Tolot told Panacea a few seconds later, and began to move their body back into the room, closely followed by the healer.

They reached the stretcher where they had deposited Flechette, and Taylor looked down at the peacefully sleeping Ward with growing anxiety.

She herself felt fear permeate her whole mind if she imagined going up against the Endbringer again, despite the fact that Tolot's claim about their insane toughness had been proven correct.

But taking this vulnerable small girl, who couldn't be much older than Taylor herself, back into such a fight - it was crazy.

Panacea kneeled down besides Flechette, and touched her right palm to the Ward's temple.

She closed her own eyes and took a deep breath, as if to fortify herself against what she had been blackmailed into doing.

While she watched on, Taylor's thoughts raced, driven by her dread, and she tried desperately to find a solution for the problem before them.

Despite every misgiving she had about Tolot, it felt somewhat inspiring to feel the Halutian brain do the same thing just a thought away inside their mindscape.

"We could try to find a fitting suit of armor out there, but that would mean taking it from a wounded or dead cape, not something I'm comfortable with." she reasoned.

"Or maybe we could discover something else that could protect her..."

Taylor thought of and discarded half a dozen unlikely ideas, like finding a one-man submarine or a knight's armor from a museum, but then she realized that she was thinking of this the wrong way.

"We'll never locate something in time that would allow Flechette to move under her own power in the fight, but we might have more luck with durable stuff we could carry her in..."

A picture of their frame hauling a massive strongbox through the apocalyptic scenery of a flooded Boston formed before her mind's eye.

"That's much better, but it would still leave Flechette vulnerable if the safe took a direct hit, or it fell into the flood... and how could she use her power from inside that? Will she be even able to, without her crossbow?"

Her frantic thinking was interrupted when Panacea opened her eyes again and gave their form a nod, signaling the concussion had been healed, but mindful of Glory Girl and the medics around them.

"She will wake up in less than a minute, then you should be on your way." Panacea dismissed them, and quickly strode over to her anxious sister to give her a reassuring hug.

Transforming Flechette into an "Oxtornian", whoever or whatever they were, would've really been the easiest solution, Taylor thought with regret, but if the girl lacked the mass and energy reserves required, nothing could be done...

A sudden insight struck Taylor - where Flechette was thin and exhausted from her wounds and the healing, their own form was anything but!

The strongbox idea shot back into Taylor's focus, but it was literally transformed.

Instead of stuffing Flechette into a safe made for money, not humans, they could - with Panaceas's help of course - construct a living carrying pouch for the Ward out of their own body!

Taylor felt giddy contemplating the new and indeed very strange concept - it would solve all their problems in one go, protecting Flechette from Leviathan, and making her as mobile as their form.

She didn't try to translate the idea into words and sentences, but formed a very descriptive picture, focusing on their huge body, with Flechette peering out of a marsupium - it paid to be attentive in biology class if you wanted to impress with loanwords! - on their back, and Panacea holding on to their left running arm.

Taylor pushed the mental image into the hub, and instantly, the activity beyond it spiked like never before.

_**"Icho Tolot is impressed by your reasoning. This plan could actually work, if both Flechette and Panacea are agreeable,"**_ the Halutian replied a fraction of a second later, the tone of his inner "voice" much more affable than it had been at any moment in the last hour of their enforced togetherness.

If she could've blushed in her current state, Taylor would've turned red as a tomato at the praise.

She was inordinately pleased to get recognition from Tolot, the cold intellect that had until now mostly manipulated her feelings, brushed off her questions, and had taken her advice only once before, on Armsmaster and his halberd.

The thought of how that had turned out cooled Taylor's emotional high though, and she concentrated on her idea again, trying to improve it.

They would need to know how Flechette's power functioned, if it could be even used with something else than her weapon, and they had to figure out a way to let her breath if the Halutian body had to dive...

The Ward chose that moment to wake up, interrupting Taylor's thoughts.

Her eyes behind the visor fluttered open, and she let them wander over their huge frame, towering over her.

It took her only moments to collect herself, then she sat up, took a quick look around the hospital, and started to touch down her own body, checking it routinely, as if she was used to being hurt.

She had an air of professionalism that astonished Taylor, who hadn't expected it in someone who was around her own age.

"Are all Wards this hardened and experienced?" she asked herself, feeling humbled by the thought how shell shocked and cowed she would've reacted in Flechette's position.

"Well, at least I'm still alive and in one piece after loosing my weapon in battle," were the first words the Ward uttered, more to herself than them.

Taylor was touched by the self-depreciative tone of Flechette's voice, and for once, Tolot seemed to share her sentiment.

Their body bowed forward, and they addressed Flechette in the same almost "soft" and "comforting" inflection they had used before.

_**"Icho Tolot thinks that you are selling yourself short, little one."**_ they rumbled.

"If I'd done my job and killed that bastard, you wouldn't have had to rescue me, right?" Flechette asked sharply, but it was clear that she was mostly angry with herself, and neither Taylor nor Tolot took offense, if the latter could even do so.

_**"Icho Tolot observed your contribution to the fight, and it was not an exaggeration that Leviathan was targeting you specifically. The Endbringer reacted this way because your attacks hurt him more than any other. Probability: 89.652 percent." **_

Flechette stood up from her litter, and started to stretch her arms and legs, seemingly unimpressed by Tolot's titanic body standing so close to her.

"Yeah, I might've hurt that monster some, but that's done and over with now. Without my arbalest, I'm useless against him."

_**"That depends on the exact function of your power."**_ Tolot corrected her, still speaking in the low and "soft" voice they'd adopted.

"Nah, it doesn't. Without my crossbow, the bolts -" she patted the quiver that was still fastened to her right shoulder "are useless. I can hardly take one of them and engage Leviathan in a duel."

Flechette chuckled darkly while she patted the thin fabric of costume over her chest, as if she knew something they didn't, but Tolot didn't ask what that might be, but followed the original path of the conversation.

_**"Deduction: Losing your arbalest doesn't invalidate your power. The bolts could still be used, either by throwing or as enhanced daggers." **_

The Ward didn't answer, but laughed out loud at their statement, while she continued stretching and started jumping on the spot.

It was humorless laughter, sarcastic and bitter.

_**"Are you able to change only part of a weapon into the multidimensional state Icho Tolot observed you using in the battle?" **_

Their question broke through Flechette's crossness, and she pondered their words for a moment before answering.

"You know, it's considered suspicious to ask for information on anyones powers, especially while an Endbringer truce is in effect."

She halted her explanation and took a closer look at them, clearly asking herself what she should tell them.

"I guess you're pretty new to the game though," she concluded "and are actually trying to be helpful here. You were also very brave, going in and wrestling with the Endbringer like you did."

Tolot made their body bow in an affirmative gesture, that expressed thanks for the compliments at the same time, but kept silent, putting very light pressure on Flechette to fill the silence with her own words.

"Very well," she gave in finally "I'll tell you. Yes, I can change parts of weapons with my power while the rest keeps its normal, not physics-breaking structure. The larger the mass I change, the shorter the time my power stays in effect. Even with the maximum charge, it doesn't stay changed for more than half a minute."

_**"Thank you for trusting Icho Tolot. Your power might still be of great use against Leviathan if it is constructively combined with others. Please come with this form." **_

Without looking back and checking if Flechette was actually following, they marched over to Panacea, who was back at Miss Militia's side, and had just finished regrowing the heroines arm.

_**"Panacea, the option we discussed earlier, regarding Flechette, might still be feasible in a different application. You need to accompany Icho Tolot for a few more minutes." **_

The healer looked up at them, anger showing on what was visible of her petite face, but she stood up with a resigned groan, and went with them, waving off Glory Girl, who had started to pursue them.

The Halutian body left the cantina-cum-sick bay with quick strides, the two young heroines following in his wake.

Seconds later, they broke through the next door down the corridor, not even noticing its locked up state.

They had entered the kitchen that supplied the cantina with food, but all three ignored the rows of stainless steel implements and gas stoves in favor of their reason to be there in the first place.

_**"Icho Tolot has developed a method to combine the three powers available to us against Leviathan. Here is what needs to be done..." **_

The planning brain explained Taylor's idea to Panacea and Flechette in short and precise words and a purely factual tone, but with every sentence, their expressions shifted further into the land of disbelieve and horror.

"You can't be serious!" Flechette cut Tolot off while their form was expounding on the advantages their scheme would offer.

"I mean, bringing the fight to Leviathan with my power would be great, but what you propose is disgusting, I'd be like Jonah living in the whale!"

_**"The analogy you use is an enormous exaggeration. Jonah lived for three days inside the fish, you would be required to stay inside the proposed pouch for mere minutes, and at a maximum a few hours." **_

Taylor wasn't sure that Tolot's method of countering Flechette's concerns by criticizing her metaphors was wise, but she didn't try to dissuade him.

_**"The options are simple,"**_ the Halutian went on, his tone becoming harsher and colder with every syllable he growled out _**"either you acquiesce to this plan, or Leviathan will kill even more innocents in this city, only to finally flee and repeat the same atrocities elsewhere. We have a chance to end this once and for all. Do you really want to waste it because you think it gross to be inside a body pouch?"**_

Flechette didn't reply to this, but looked at her feet, obviously fighting an inner battle.

The other cape in the room used the silence to present her own objections, though.

"You didn't even ask if I was able and willing to do what you claim is needed! What about me and our deal?" Panacea asked snidely, while she sent a look heavy with meaning towards Flechette, indicating to the Halutian that she wasn't at all pleased about the way he had just revealed one of her publicly unknown abilities to the Ward.

_**"Icho Tolot is sure that you will be able to alter this body. The probability stands at 78.6 percent. Regarding the "deal" you refer to, Icho Tolot reminds you that there is much more to it than what has been discussed here..." **_

Panacea winced at the only slightly hidden threat to reveal the secret of her faked inability to treat brain injuries to Flechette, and once again, Taylor felt deep sympathy with the healer, who had fallen silent.

Tolot's methods were ruthless, and she felt that they could only be justified in a situation like this, where thousands of lives were under the threat of being snuffed out like candles in the storm.

The silence in the large room stretched for what felt like an eternity to Taylor, but finally, Flechette looked up again, the visible parts of her face fixed into an emotionless expression of determination.

"You've made your point, Icho Tolot, and I know my responsibilities."

She turned to Panacea, who was standing besides her in a posture speaking of exhaustion and utter defeat.

"Let's do this!"


	7. You always meet twice

2.7

Flechette removed her quiver from her shoulder and threw it onto one of the work tables of the kitchen.

Thus unimpaired, she moved closer to the Halutian body, until she stood directly behind them, dwarfed by their massive form.

Tolot stretched the hands of their lower arms backwards, and Flechette used the palms as holds to climb up with surprising speed and agility.

"Come on Panacea, no time like the present to become a kangaroo pup!" she called towards the healer in a tone much too flippant for the occasion.

She was very obviously hiding her own insecurity behind a screen of false cheer.

Taylor herself couldn't help but have a few last minute doubts at her own idea, mostly because this whole thing was what amounted to a totally untested and pretty severe body-hack, but she fought her misgivings back down with the thought that the planning brain knew the capacity and redundancies of their body much better than she.

Panacea ignored Flechette's gallows humor and stayed silent, but she approached the pair and waited for the Ward to reach her preplanned position, with her head slightly below the Halutian's shoulders and her feet at the small of his back, still supported by the lower arms.

Flechette was of a slightly more than average height for a female teen, about five feet five, and could therefore be fully hidden behind their form, protected by the main mass of the Halutian's body.

Their upper arms reached back and fixed the heroine in place, enabling her to let go of their shoulders, and to put her hands on the black skin at their flanks.

"Icho Tolot is ready, Panacea," their body's voice announced in its deep bass.

"Remember that the skin of the pouch must have a thickness of at least two inches at all places, and that Flechette needs closable openings for her hands and for breathing."

Panacea gave them a curt nod in reply, then she touched their lower back, and the process of turning their Halutian frame into a marsupial began.

The effect on their body was the same as the first time when Panacea's power had taken hold of them, but ten times more intense, especially on their back.

There, the tingling they felt all over and throughout their body turned into a piercing pain, one they could only endure because the planning brain was in full control of their body.

To distract Taylor from the constant ache, Tolot deployed their central eye once again, and with a mix of fascination and disgust, they watched on as lappets of their black skin began to grow up from their body, climbing up Flechette's suite at all points, from her toes to her neckline.

"Ugh, this is mega creepy!" the Ward muttered, and Taylor was sure that it was costing her enormous efforts to keep herself motionless, while a film of alien skin was pullulating all over her body.

"Icho Tolot admires your perseverance, little one, just carry on as you do, and it will soon be over," the planning brain grumbled in the "soft" tone it often resorted to when addressing the young heroine.

An ironic grimace played over the visible parts of Flechette's face for a second, but she didn't reply otherwise, clearly concentrating on staying still and not freaking out on them.

In less then a minute, the flaps of skin were covering Flechette's whole form, including her head, leaving only half a dozen small openings facing towards their left shoulder, over her mouth and nose, in order to let her breath.

The sac of black Halutian dermis began to thicken and to bulge out, building what could rightfully be called a rounded pouch, its walls stabilized by cartilage to keep as much of the skin's weight as possible from squeezing down on the Ward inside.

Nerves started to grow in the new tissue, and for the first time, they could actually feel Flechette inside their own body, a warm and soft presence enclosed and protected by them, stretching the new marsupium very slightly by the rapid - surely stress induced - breathing of her lungs .

Panacea wasn't done though, and as Taylor watched on, the skin covering Flechette's hands began to transform – the smooth surface started to show detailed features, until it turned into bladed shutters, carbon copies of the ones that could snap shut over their body's eyes if there was any danger to them.

When the two openings were complete and connected to Tolot's nervous sytem, Panacea took a step backwards and lifted her hand from their arm, breaking the contact essential for the use of her power.

"Your body has large reserves of energy to work with, Mr. Tolot, but before I make the last rounds of adjustments, I would prefer it if you could eat something, so that your metabolism can start replacing what I used. You are taking Flechette into a fight with Leviathan, after all."

Panacea's tone was utterly professional, no feelings colored her voice, but it was nonetheless very obvious that she didn't care one iota for Tolot's own survival, but only that of the Ward.

"Icho Tolot is indeed experiencing hunger – it shall be addressed." their form answered rumblingly.

They stamped away from the healer, the ground vibrating in accord to their heavy steps, and walked over to a huge steel door inset in the kitchen's wall on the far side of the cantina.

"What are you doing?" Flechette queried from behind their back, her voice somewhat dampened by the small, closable air holes, which reminded Taylor of the blowholes of whales or dolphins.

They were the Wards only remaining connection to the world outside her pouch.

Taylor could well imagine how nonplussed the Ward must be by her inability to see what was happening around her - they were in similar positions now, after all, both trapped inside Icho Tolot's body, but to different degrees.

"Assumption: Icho Tolot will find the kitchen stores behind this unusually large door," the planning brain told their new passenger.

With one swift and effortless movement, the heavy metal door was swung open, and the Halutian entered what was by one look confirmed to be a supply room.

The shelves were stocked with huge amounts of the kind of food you expect to find in a commercial kitchen, and another door led to a walk-in freezer.

Without hesitation, the planning brain steered their frame to the frozen-storage room.

"Meat will provide high density nutrition," their body informed Flechette, while they opened the insulated door, and entered.

It seemed that the hospital staff was constantly fed with all kinds of health degrading fast food, because one whole transport box directly besides the entrance of the freezer contained hundreds of shrink-packed burger patties.

"This will suffice," the planning brain commented.

Their body lifted the whole box up to their wide open mouth, where they commenced to tilt the container, leading to a constant avalanche of still wrapped burger-meat tumbling into their gigantic maw.

It took them less than 10 seconds to gobble all of the box's contents down their gullet, then they threw the pallet cage to the ground carelessly, and returned to Panaceas's side.

"This ones metabolism has absorbed approximately 335 pounds of frozen mincemeat, that seems adequate for the moment." they informed the healer.

"Well, uhhmmm... that's ok than, I guess," she replied haltingly, trying and failing to hide her shock and revulsion at their form's eating habits.

She restored their bodily connection again, and Taylor could sense how the New Wave heroine resumed her work.

The inner layers of the pouch began to liquefy, as Panacea's power changed the freshly grown skin cells into her own version of the shock absorbing gel that surrounded, according to Tolot's quick explanation from before, the miniscule heap of cells in the Halutian's brain that stayed active even while 99.999% of their body was transformed.

"Hmm, this stuff is surprisingly comfortable." Flechette said from inside their marsupium, and from her tone it was evident that she wasn't only trying to convince herself, but really meant it.

"It's warm, it doesn't smell, and it will save my ass when we're hit by the wannabe dragon out there - I'm sure this is how a baby feels inside her mother's womb," the Ward continued.

That analogy made Taylor very uncomfortable for some reason, but it seemed to have the opposite effect on the planning brain.

"Icho Tolot will protect you, little one," their voice declared in a strange mixture of fierce determination and soft overtones.

"No one shall harm you while you are with Icho Tolot."

"That's good to hear, I hope you remember it when Eidolon or Jouster find out that I agreed to the insane idea of being carried around like an embryo in an unknown cape's body pouch." the Ward quipped.

Taylor was very happy when this unsettling conversation was cut short by Panacea, who declared them to be "As prepared as I can make you", and promptly turned around to leave them.

"Icho Tolot will remember the agreement you made with this body." they called after her, but the young healer gave them only a short last glance over her shoulder, before she disappeared back into the corridor, undoubtedly on he way back to her duty in the sick bay.

"Well, let's go out there and kick some ass!" Flechette called out, her voice audibly shrill despite her inclosure in their pouch, most likely from the adrenaline that must've started to course through her system with Panacea's declaration that they were ready to engage.

Obediently, their massive body followed her demand, grabbed the quiver containing her darts, and fell down to their running arms.

Like a living main battle tank, they sped away, eager to resume their fight against the Endbringer.

2.8

They left the hospital by a side door, thereby avoiding the triage area in front of the main entrance and the teaming mass of humanity there.

It was getting dark fast, and looked as if nightfall was only an hour or two away, although it couldn't have been later than three pm, according to Taylor's reckoning.

The racing storm clouds overhead poured a never ending stream of torrential rain down on Boston, adding to the ocean's floodwaters that were already covering whole square miles of the city.

With their perfect Halutian hearing, they listened in as Flechette used her Protectorate issued com-badge to get them transportation, but it was a slow process, because, as she had explained while she waited to get into the loop, everyone with any authority was protected from receiving simple combat chatter by a prescreening process, and the network operator had marked the young Ward as "out of action", which usually meant " out of communication" too.

Due to their high ground speed, they reached the spot kept free for teleporters in less than a minute, long before the Ward had been able to convince anyone that, yes, she was really Flechette, fully healed, and indeed, needed a jumper to get them back into the fight.

The plot of asphalt used by the teleporters was marked by wildly fluttering warning tape, surely a tinkerfab product if it could keep up with the wind pressure Leviathan's tempest created.

Taylor noticed with concern that even here at the hospital, which had surely been chosen as evacuation zone for wounded capes because it was situated at an elevated point of the city, the water was ankle-deep, and kept rising.

A single parahuman was sitting slumped on a folding chair directly outside the barred area, protected from the worst of the storm's violence by an empty PRT truck.

The crew of the vehicle, eight men and women in the bulky armor of the Parahuman Response Teams, had taken up posts around the area, securing it and standing ready to help the incoming wounded.

The PRT soldiers ignored Tolot, having seen the mighty form before, and instead of talking to them, they approached the cape, who was wearing a hodgepodge set of badly fitting armor, and was surely either an independent hero, or even a villain – he lacked the rounded and professional look the Protectorate and Wards managed to provide for their members.

The Halutian hulked over the unknown cape and inspected him dispassionately, but he didn't even notice them, obviously fatigued to near unconsciousness.

"This parahuman is not a reliable source of transportation," Tolot commented, and they turned away, leaving the depleted teleporter to his recuperation.

While they stood there in the rain, useless and impotent without transport, a large group of wounded people was teleported in, all of them unpowered civilians.

Even their lightning fast reaction time wasn't enough to do more than open their mouth in order to shout, before a golden opportunity to enter the fight vanished in front of their eyes, as the jumper who had brought the injured disappeared again

"It would be the height of irony to have gone to all these lengths to protect and heal Flechette, to blackmail Panacea into using her full power on us, only to be left here, unable to influence the battle," Taylor thought with rising frustration.

Inside their marsupium, Flechette was still debating hotly with whoever was on the other end of her radio.

"What do you mean with 'you have no priority'?" she shouted into her miniaturized microphone, audibly angry at the stonewalling.

"Icho Tolot wrestled Leviathan to a standstill, and I shot him several times, punching right through his head! Give us the damn priority!"

She paused and listened for a long span of time, only to reply even more caustically.

"No, this can't wait! Let me talk to Myrddin if you are so fucking "unauthorized", he'll give the necessary orders!"

Taylor wasn't sure that the tone Flechette was taking with the operator would be all that conductive in getting what they needed, but she could understand the heroine's anger.

"Hey, big guy, could you give us a hand with these people?" one of the PRT troopers called to them, the soldiers responsible for helping the wounded clearly not enough to deal with the dozen or so bleeding and confused civilians that had been dumped on them.

"Icho Tolot will comply," the planning brain answered, and walked their body over to the struggling soldiers, who had already failed to keep some of the wounded from collapsing into the water.

They spent the next minutes, while they were waiting on the Protectorate chain of command to untangle itself, with carrying people from the teleporatation point to the triage area, mostly those who were unconscious or too out of it to be scared by their form's horrifying appearance.

Finally, Flechette managed to get Myrddin on the line, and her tone changed massively, from angrily demanding to calm and respectful.

"Sir, Flechette here. I've been fully healed, and I've found a way to combine my power with that of Icho Tolot, to put it to greater effect. I need a teleporter to pick us up from the hospital where Panacea is treating capes, didn't catch the name."

Even with the Halutian's senses, they couldn't overhear the answer, because it was delivered through a tightly fitting plug directly into Flechette's ear canal, but when she spoke next, Flechette seemed relieved.

"Yes sir, thank your for the help, sir!" she told the leader of the Chicago Protectorate, before cancelling the call.

"A jumper for us will be here soon, but there is the slight problem that they still don't know where Leviathan has gone. They've just come up with the theory that he might be hiding in the Charles River though, there are seismic shocks happening around the MIT. We'll go there first."

"Icho Tolot thanks you for your help. Attacking a center of high technological research fits with what is known to this form of Leviathan's operational mode."

Taylor shuddered as she heard the Halutian's conclusion, but she couldn't deny that it was plausible enough.

The Endbringers as a whole seemed to prefer attacking cities and areas with high concentrations of population, most often in first world or at least in newly industrialized countries, while third world states like Bangladesh or Liberia were mostly ignored by the monsters.

Not that they hadn't their own variety of evil and insane capes there, but that was still better than attracting the attention of Leviathan or his siblings.

They came back to the teleporation spot, which had been cleared of the injured by now, and for once, they didn't have to wait long.

Just seconds after their form had arrived, a loud report sounded, and a cape stood a mere two feet in front of them, too close for either Tolot's or the teleporter's comfort.

The parahuman took a few steps back from them and stared up at their monstrous head, especially the teeth, his facial expression hidden behind a full face mask that was covered by physics formulas and pictures of bright, majestic galaxies.

"I'm Curvature," he introduced himself with a slight quiver to his voice, probably shaken up by landing this close to the huge, muscle packed and deeply intimidating Halutian.

"Myrddin told me to jump Flechette and one " Icho Tolot" over to the MIT. I focused on her and my power brought me here. But... where is she?"

He looked around, searching for the Ward, highly confused by her absence.

"Greetings Curvature, this form is called Icho Tolot," they introduced themselves, and gave the teleporter a slight bow.

"The Ward Flechette is riding in this body's marsupium in order to protect her," they explained, and promptly pivoted around, to present the cape with their pouch.

"Hey there, Curvature!" Flechette called from inside their body, her voice muffled, but easily understandable, and tinged with an amused undertone.

The Protectorate hero stared, then did a classic double-take, and Taylor chuckled mentally, delighted despite herself at the stupefaction her idea of turning their form into a Halutian kangaroo was causing.

To his credit, Curvature got a grip on himself in less than ten seconds, and he gave them a sharp nod, signaling his understanding.

"That's a bit unconventional, but not the strangest thing I've seen in my career." he stated, gaining back his confidence while he was speaking.

"As long as it works, it's all good in my book." he concluded, and stepped up to their body again.

"If you would give me your hand, Icho Tolot, I'll take you and your... passenger to your destination."

The planning brain followed his request, and Curvature took the offered hand in both of his.

"Wow, you are one heavy... eh, person. This will take a lot out of me." he complained after a moment of silence.

Tolot didn't comment, and they stood there for a few seconds longer, until Curvature gave a strained grunt, and the landscape surrounding them vanished from one blink of the eye to the other.

They arrived with an extremely loud sound, nearly a detonation, and Curvature let go of their hand, and fell to his knees, winded and breathing heavily.

Taylor took in their new environment through Tolot's senses, and was surprised to find them on the roof of a high rise, which they shared not only with a large group of other capes, but also two huge spheres that reminded her of radar cupolas she'd seen on TV before.

"Quite correct, these are radomes, domes protecting primitive radar installations from atmospheric conditions." Tolot concurred.

They bowed down to check on Curvature, but the cape was already rising on his own power.

"You are really a lump of a brute." he informed them, clearly put out that teleporting them had taxed him this much, then he promptly jumped away without another word.

Their form ignored the slight, and marched over to the group of capes, and Taylor was relieved when the concrete beneath their massive feet showed no sign of buckling under their massive weight.

The unmistakable figure of Myrddin stood at the center of the formation of capes, some of whom were clinging to the rail of the roof, staring downwards, while others were just holding on to some technical installation or another, securing themselves against the storm, and waiting for the next round of murderous combat against the enigmatic foe of humanity that was Leviathan.

"Icho Tolot, welcome to the fittingly entitled Green Building of the MIT, tower of our hope. It is good to meet you once again, albeit the circumstances leave a lot to be desired," Myrddin greeted them, rather ramblingly in Taylor's opinion.

He was floating a feet above the concrete, and his wet cowl was plastered onto his thin figure by the raging wind, but despite that, he kept his position easily.

"Where might young Flechette be, though?" he inquired in his typical anachronistic speech, and Taylor was once again reminded that she - or at least Tolot, piloting what had become of her body - was now playing in the highest league of parahumans in the country, if not the world.

"I'm here, sir!" the Ward called from her pouch, and Myrddin's eyes went wide when their form turned sideward, and he could see the newly grown marsupium on their back.

"Egad! What kind of wizardry is this?" he shouted in alarm, and some of the other capes stared over to them, distracted from their efforts to stay on the roof by their leader's exclamation.

"This is the combination of our powers I spoke about, sir." Flechette explained hastily and as loudly as she could from inside the pouch.

"If Leviathan turns up, Icho Tolot's hardened skin will protect me, and he's fast and powerful enough to throw my darts after I infuse them with my power."

Everyone stared at them, dumbstruck by the strange and slightly disgusting concept, and the no less disconcerting sight, but Tolot just ignored the very uncomfortable silence, and soldiered on as if nothing untoward had happened.

"For optimum combat efficiency, Icho Tolot needs a melee weapon in addition to Flechette's bolts. Is there a cape here who has a spare?"

No one answered the question, and a second later, it became immaterial, as the voice of Dragon's armbands sounded from every device on the rooftop:

"Leviathan spotted, CF 2."

"That's somewhere at the Harvard Bridge!" a local cape shouted, and pointed in the direction

Together with everyone else, their form turned towards the Charles River, and away from Myrddin.

Their body approached the rail in a run, surprising those capes who hadn't seen them in action before with their ability to move freely in the gale, without any visible use of their power.

Taylor noticed with their peripheral vision as the other parahumans followed them more slowly, most of them fighting intensely against the head winds coming in from the ocean, but nearly all of of her concentration was on the vista in front of their eyes.

Leviathan had indeed emerged from the Charles River, and was speeding towards the massive but low-slung Harvard Bridge.

Despite the fight the Endbringer had slugged out with the triumvirate, while Tolot brought Flechette to the hospital, got her healed and worked out their deal with Panacea, Leviathan didn't look all that much worse for wear.

Only two seconds after they had spotted him once again, the monster smashed into the bridge, his chest even with the roadway.

In his furious race over the river's surface, he had built up enough kinetic energy to simply break through the whole width of the construction, spraying debris in every direction, and leaving a gaping hole in the structure behind, as he submerged himself in the water of the Charles once again.

"It is time to prepare our arms, Flechette," their voice grumbled, loud enough to be heard by the Ward in her protective sac.

"I'm ready, Tolot." came the steady and simple answer.

Taylor didn't believe for a second that she could have sounded as collected and prepared as the Ward at this moment, but that was why someone else was running her body, a fact she still despised, but had at the same time learned to appreciate the longer this nightmare of a battle lasted.

Tolot took three of Flechette's bolts out of their quiver, which he was holding in his left lower hand.

With each of the other hands, they gripped one of the projectiles a few inches ahead of their blunt ends, with the sharp tips pointing outwards, away from them.

Judging by the adroit way their fingers held the bolts, this wasn't the first time the Halutian had used similar throwing weapons.

Taylor felt how Tolot activated the bladed shutters over Flechette's hands.

"Icho Tolot suggests charging three-thirds of the darts' front length." they told the heroine bluntly.

What came next surprised even Taylor in its perfect coordination and smooth execution.

The end of two bolts touched the centers of the shutters on both sides of their back, the thick membranes opened up just wide enough to let two inches of the weapons length glide inside, and simultaneously kept squeezing the darts so tightly that not one drop of the protective gel contained in the marsupium could leak out.

A second later, they felt Flechette's soft touch on the bolts, and saw the projectiles change in a very subtle way.

They had lost some of the metallic shine the ends still held, and looked blurred, as if someone had used a soft-focus tool on them.

"They're powered up!" Flechette called - and that was all that was needed to turn their body into a living bolt-throwing machine.

Tolot had assured Flechette in their short discussion of the idea that they would have a range of at least three-hundred yards, especially with the physics-breaking quality of the changed bolts reducing the influence of "trivial" things like gravity and friction.

Two of their three red eyes roamed over the river, searching for Leviathan's reappearance, while the central one was once again deployed to keep a look at their back, which meant, this time around, constantly checking the status of the bolts.

After exactly 31.34 seconds, both weapons changed back into normal darts, and Tolot signaled Flechette with a simple "Reload!" that she had to use her power on them once again.

Tolot started to patrol the length of the roof, but was very careful in keeping a save distance between the points of their highly destructive weapons and the other capes.

Half of the new charge had expired, when a large number of flyers appeared in the distance, lead by the triumvirate.

In seconds, Eidolon was circling above the Charles River, and his power that looked like a waterspout sprang into action again, sucking up tons of river water in mere seconds, all from one spot close to the their side of the shore, about 600 yards away.

"Eidolon must have spotted the enemy, it is unconceivable that he plans to drain the whole river," Tolot stated inside their mindscape.

"Yeah, that would take hours even at this speed," Taylor agreed.

With one of his enormous leaps, the Endbringer proved them correct, as he emerged from the stream, and catapulted himself towards a large pier that protruded into the Charles, the mooring place of at least three dozen motorboats.

When the monster landed and crashed through the marina, he destroyed the whole structure, and most of the small ships either capsized, or were simply turned into ricocheting plywood.

"Distance: 385 yards. Probability of hitting the target: 38%. Engagement inadvisable at this time." the Halutian observed coldly.

They stood at their perch high above the river, and looked on as Legend attacked the monster with an intense shower of red laser beams, while Eidolon sucked as much water away from the Endbringer as his twister power allowed.

Many other capes, including some of those on their rooftop, entered the fray, and added their blasts and projectiles, until Leviathan was constantly hit with one attack or another, despite his unbelievable quick movements.

The monster seemed to dislike the barrage from afar, although it didn't do all that much damage to him, and he left the crushed marina behind with the largest jump they had seen him perform as of yet.

"Trajectory calculated. Enemy enters firing envelope in 0.35 seconds," Tolot informed Taylor with the speed of thought.

At the same moment, he ordered Flechette to recharge the two bolts, then immediately removed them in the same totally controlled and swift way they had been entered earlier.

Down on the ground, Leviathan landed on a tennis court situated on the outskirts of the MIT campus, bowling the referee towers over as if they were mere miniatures.

Through the sudden change of position, the Endbringer had forced the blasters and other long distance combatants to either come closer, or disengage, because he was now surrounded on three sides by MIT buildings.

Tolot, on the other hand, had him in the cross hairs now, and the Halutian wasted no more time.

"Target acquired. Two shots to the right knee joint."

Their upper arms, which were holding the charged bolts, were lowered down behind them, giving Tolot the longest possible period of acceleration, then their titanic muscles tensed, their movements perfectly guided to the micrometer and -second by the planning brain.

The two bolts shot from their hands with a speed significantly higher than those managed by the conventional torsion weapons of early human history, their planned flight paths adjusted to Leviathan's movements until the instant they left the Halutian's finger.

Half a second later, the two projectiles hit home, piercing the right knee of the monster from the front, punching through the whole leg with effortless ease, and finally ejecting at the back in a dense shower of ichor.

Leviathan stumbled and went down, ramming the already wounded knee deep into the ground, his tail thrashing wildly to regain the lost balance.

"Injuring joints appears as effective as inferred. Continuing attack with these parameters."

Every cape in the vicinity who hadn't already, took advantage of the Endbringer's momentary quandary, and opened fire on him.

"Reload!" Tolot demanded from Flechette, while he performed the necessary movements in perfect syncronicity, and injected the next two bolts through the openings of their marsupium.

Only Flechette's human reaction speed and the short spans she needed to charge the darts hindered the Halutian from raining a constant stream of projectiles down on the Endbringer, but even so, the next salvo left their hands only three seconds after the first.

As planned, the two bolts punctured Leviathan's other knee, and produced two wound canals that made the whole leg buckle under the monsters great weight.

Having lost the support of both limbs, the Endbringer began to fall sideward, crushed the remains of one referee tower into toothpick sized fragments under his claws, and tumbled to the ground.

The enemy was nothing but resourceful though, and before Tolot could line up his next shots, Leviathan had used the momentum of his fall and powerful thrusts of his arms and tail, to turn his utter collapse into a fast roll towards the closest house.

He slammed into the wall of the historic campus building with such force that it gave way, and Leviathan disappeared inside, hidden from view.

Some of the other heroes on the roof started to swear so furiously that their curses could be heard even over the din of the storm.

"What's happening out there, I can't see a thing!" Flechette complained, and Taylor sympathized greatly with her predicament.

She herself couldn't follow even half the things the Halutian was doing at any given moment, how much worse would it be for the Ward in her pouch, nearly blind and in a fixed position on their back?

Tolot didn't react to Flechette's demands at all, but simply put the already half raised darts back into their biological fittings, where Flechette powered them up, while still bemoaning her total ignorance of the situation.

In the next instant, Alexandria rocketed into view like a suicidal dive bomber, and smashed her way into the ground level of the five story building, clearly planning to get the Endbringer out of his cover.

It seemed that Leviathan had anticipated her move though, because she was ejected back out nearly as fast as she had entered, and crashed into the house on the opposite side of the tennis court.

"Alexandria's entry and exit vectors can be used to determine Leviathan's last position with high accuracy," the Halutian told Taylor.

They fired off both charged darts, and from the sounds coming out of the house, Tolot calculated a 82% chance that they had actually hit the monster through the walls, and injured him further.

Their body turned around to the other capes on the high rise's roof, and they walked up to a small cluster of them, which contained some people carrying visible hand to hand weapons.

"This is a singular opportunity to engage Leviathan in close quarters combat. Icho Tolot needs a melee weapon. NOW!"

The last word was bellowed out so loud that many of the capes grimaced and grabbed their ears in pain, and Taylor thought by herself that this kind of shouting made them look like a stupid bully, but to her consternation, the intimidation tactic actually produced results.

A bulky cape in heavy tinker armor approached hesitantly, and handed them something that looked to Taylor like an enormously enlarged version of the hammers in her dads tool box at home, with an at least four feet long handle and a massive head that was spiked on one side.

"Here, take my warhammer, I'll stick to my gun for now," the cape told them nervously, while he patted a large holster that was fitted to his right thigh.

Tolot grabbed the weapon with the hand already holding Flechette's quiver, grasping both items easily with his large fingers.

"Thank you. This will be returned if at all possible."

Their body moved back to the rail, and Taylor felt her fear rising higher with every step they took.

"What's the plan?" she asked the Halutian, using the same shorthand speech he employed in battle, but she didn't even notice it.

"Icho Tolot will descend this building slower than usual, in order to keep Flechette as save as possible, and to test the effectivity of the shock-absorbing gel." the planning brain said, using their body's voice so that Flechette could hear the explanation too.

They reached the edge of the roof with the last word, and Tolot didn't give Taylor or Flechette any opportunity to protest or propose something different, but just stepped over the rail, and went into free fall, only a feet away from the building's face.

A moment later, the outer layers of their body were transformed, including all of the marsupium, and both of their action arms shot out and punched through the wall they were falling along.

Their weight and the already gathered speed made them break through the next eight floors before they came to a halt, their arms grasping a bent structural beam.

"How is your status, Flechette?" Tolot asked the Ward.

For a few seconds, there was no answer, and Taylor's concern for her fellow passenger in her own body skyrocketed, but then Flechette reacted.

"Phew, this was crazy shit... but I think that I'm still in one piece. Didn't feel all that much from the impacts, really, but I still nearly p... ah, never mind that."

The heroine was shaken, and her voice quivered slightly, but she was still there and mostly unharmed, to Taylor's immense relief.

"Impressive. This means the gel enables you to withstand forces of at least eight gravos without harm," the Halutian said, only to let go of the steel girder, and plunge the remaining sixty feet to the ground, with Flechette screaming all the way down.

They punched a crater in the asphalt with their hard landing, but the Halutian simply ignored it, and dashed off towards the last known position of the Endbringer.

"Reload!" their voice ordered once again, while their weapons were reshuffled.

The heavy warhammer went into the hand of their right upper arm, while the left stayed unoccupied, and the two lower hands injected two new bolts into the shutters of the pouch, where they were promptly charged up by Flechette's power.

Their sprint brought them to the mostly destroyed first floor of the building in an instant, and Tolot slowed down before they entered the ruined place.

"How can the bastard even hide in here, he's thirty freaking feet tall!" Taylor asked herself angrily, mostly to overcome her own paralyzing fear of the Endbringer, and accordingly, she got no answer from the Halutian, who was focused on the upcoming fight.

Their form reached what must've been the central entrance hall of the building, now a wasteland of rubble and broken furniture, but there was still no trace of Leviathan.

"This situation is abnormal. 64% chance of a trap, rising!"

The planning brain threw their body around, trying to escape whatever the Endbringer had wrought, but it was too late.

With a sound that reminded Taylor of dozens of explosive demolitions she'd seen on TV, the building's fundament crumbled beneath them, spongified by Leviathan's hydrokinesis, and the walls came tumbling down.


End file.
